Mirrored Halls & Musings

My family has lived in (hang on, let me count 'em) 10 different apartments (that I remember, anyway). The other day I was thinking about when we moved into the Reguiero place: concretely, the time we walked in it for the first time. I remember being so very confused and disoriented by the mirror-paneled closets on the left (they covered the entire wall) that it tinged the whole place with novelty and a sense of alien-ness. Sometimes, after we had been living there for a while, I would pass the hall and remember that feeling. It was so strange to me that that little, familiar entryway could ever have felt so odd. By that time, it was my place. I didn't like the entryway much, but the apartment was my home, really and truly, in the sense that everything that was important to me about home was there: my family, my things, my quilt. For my parents, specifically my mom, it has always been different. She never settled into places quite like we did, my sister and I. She would always worry about stuff like keeping things clean or not damaging the furniture. And then, when I was thinking about all of those things, that's when this thought struck me:

When you're a kid, you don't think of houses as being things people own, like toys. You don't think that people can borrow each others' houses, or have to take care of them. And it never even occurs to you that maybe people could be as upset about you smashing into their cabinet door and breaking it as you would be about someone cutting all of the hair off of your favorite doll. When you're a kid, an apartment is more like a... like a landscape. They're all around. Everyone has them. You just interact with them like an environment- a field, a cave, a mountain, a bush. Grownups, they see it differently, like my mom did.

Not too much of a leap of intelligence, eh? We all know that kids are oblivious. I wonder, though, if we don't forget in what ways.

in other news, my RA totally walked in on me having lunch today while listening to an audiobook w/the lights off (it's a rainy sort of day). he must not've seen my ipod or something, 'cause after a couple of askance looks, he wanted to know if i was ok. :P I explained about the audiobook, while chuckling on the inside. I don't think he was entirely reassured. :P
anyways,
over 'n out.
E.O.