Everyone comments on my hallway. I’m told that it is S-shaped, or Z-shaped: it isn’t really either, but that’s close enough to give you the idea. What people say is how much un-used space there is; only they don’t call it un-used; they call it “wasted space” or “dead space”. They are so wrong. My hallway is a three-leg open twist of space and is as clear and empty as I need it to be. It is the breathing artery of my home. It is the energetic river that flows from the front door to the back, touching on all the doors along its way.
And the doors to all my rooms are always open, so that the energy flow can swirl into and around any of them as it sees fit, or as I do.
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I remember when the hall was dark and dusty and cluttered. I remember when the curiosity cabinet stood just inside the door and struggled to contain all the memories, and history, and acquisitions, and cleaning it was such a chore that it got left, and layers of life built up on its shelves.
I kept the cabinet, and cleaned it and made conscious choices about what went back into it. Only some of what came out went in, and some that was never there, much else went away to other homes. Some lurks still in not-now drawers of my jewellery boxes waiting upon its fate. And I added my own memories, my treasures, my pretty things. It is still a work-in-progress as such cabinets are always intended to be. It now lives in my living room where I can look at the pretty things and not just in passing, and where I can see how the evening light melts into rainbows in the uneven glass of its doors.
I remember when there were pictures and mirrors on the wall in the hall: the painting of Queenie that went to the Pembroke museum last year, the wren picture that I will get re-framed and hang elsewhere, the gilded mirror that simply had no purpose being there. I’m not sure what Feng Shui says about mirrors, but I’m sure they must be disruptive to flow.
The carpeted floor was overlain with rugs, put down to protect the unwary from trailing cables, and stained with years of feet and cats. An old telephone table with an old telephone, and out-of-date business cards, and finger-printed grime.
A 1950s army-issue suitcase held the Christmas tree and its baubles that never made its way back
up to the loft, and rarely made its way into Christmas.
The picnic box that hadn’t been used since the nineties, that I tried to sell once, but then retrieved when I realised I might still have a life after all, sat in its original delivery carton, and on that sat other boxes, filled with stuff or not, and newspapers that had never been read, and kitten-training cloths.
The cool-box has been used since, and is now safely stored in a cleared-out cupboard. The cupboards are another story.
The chiffonier was against the wall and the old clock ticked and chimed. Cracked ceramic bowls held dried out plants and a crackle-shaded lamp that was never turned off. The ironing board, piled with laundry stood in front of it to keep the cats away, or maybe just as a reminder.
I remember the hall when it was dark. Striped green wall-paper, and wood-chip ceilings, and that unmistakeable scent of neglect.
I remember when the hall was a stagnant pool.
I remember the hall when it was dead space.
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There are more recent memories though. I remember the clearing and cleaning and cleansing of the space. The days and weeks of peeling away all the sadness and anger and hopelessness that had gathered there. The turning-of-the year days when I allowed frosted air to course through, and sage-scenting away the past, and jasmine-scenting the invitation to the future.
I remember the days and weeks that followed of tending to the space, bringing it back to what it is – the river that courses through my home.
White walls and wood-look laminate floors, no distractions. Space, openness.
A Tibetan tanka and African ironwork hang where the old flying boat picture used to be. The dark boxing & shelving are gone, but the hard-wood-and-rattan stick and umbrella stand has a new station by the door.
Where the overladen display once lived, there is air.
On that wall, a barometer that came with the bungalow (and not the one I rescued from my own
past), a Peruvian water-colour bought in an Andean market, part of a condolence card crafted by my oldest friend when my father died, more than a decade ago. Small things, beautiful things, things that have meaning for me.
A new friend told me that wall really needs a “statement mirror – large and bold”. I still don’t know what Feng Shui has to say about mirrors, but I know they can disrupt the flow, and I know that wall is happy as it is.
The ottoman that used to sit at the foot of my childhood bed stands where the cabinet was. It is low, and light, recently re-upholstered in an impractical fabric that makes me smile. It hides boots and bags.
A plant-stand has yet to show me how to tend the plants I try to grow there.
The chiffonier is back where it belongs, and on full view. The clock no longer ticks and chimes. I will get around to having it repaired. It is surrounded by pebbles from the beach, a seal bone, a water goddess, and a self-made reminder to Soften, Loosen.
A newer lamp is only on when needed, because the space is much brighter now. The decorator who told me that white would be too harsh changed her mind when I’d put the rest in place. White light matters. White light is what all the other colours need to feel at home. White light reflects.
And of course it is never, exactly, white.
My desk faces a wall, but if I turn to my left, I look through one of those open doors into the hall. On some sunset evenings that branch of it is soothed peach pink. As I write this on a mixed-cloud-&-sun afternoon, it is shades of grey. Sometimes, when I wake in the night it is street-light yellow. We think of white as a pure shade, but she’s a shape-shifter. White is all of the colours combined, and sometimes she chooses to accentuate one or an another of them. I feel that every home should have at least one space that is painted white: one space that we allow to do something uncontrolled by our personal colour preferences, one space we allow to be what it chooses to be on any given day.
Elsewhere, there is a framed poster advertising The Liza Wolfe Band who played The Mischief Tavern back in 1982. One of the turnings in my path that brought me here. And the fact that I asked behind the bar that night “Could I take that poster?” speaks to foresight, or kairomancy, or intuition.
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It’s not a show-room hall, expect in the sense that it shows anyone stepping into it, the state of mind of my home and me, on that day.
When all is well in my world, it is clean and clear and the energy will gentle you from the door into the kitchen or out onto the back step, the deck, the garden…or it will warmly guide you into the living room…or step you straight into the back-room where I work, and sometimes don’t.
Other times though, you will find the blanket box piled with stuff on its way out the door. Charity bags to be delivered. Bottles and papers on their way to the bins. Library books to be returned. Shoes and coats and bags just dumped because I was too tired to be bothered. Even the best-Roomaintained rivers get clogged now and again.
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I believe that everyone who walks through our lives, leaves a footprint. It follows that everyone who walks through our homes, leaves an energy trace. Everyone who walks through mine, walks through a stream I have deliberately cleaned and cleansed and continue to tend to ensure that the beautiful traces are allowed to settle and resonate, and those less helpful ones can be soothed and carried away.
Some people who come here comment on the kitchen, on the back room, or the living room, but everyone notices the hall. Even if they don’t have the faintest idea why.
