Empty spaces are strange. I’m in the process of moving houses and at the moment my old house, which I grew up in, now sits mostly empty. As I sit on the floor of my childhood bedroom, looking across at the dips and creases of carpet which mark out where furniture once was, I can’t help but think about all the fond memories I have of this place and how much I’ll miss it when it’s gone. I notice the remains of the old orange painted feature wall in the place where the wall meets the carpet where evidently the brushes and rollers couldn’t reach. I look up and see the splashes of the off-white paint on the rafters and recall that was the walls colour even before the orange, maybe fifteen years ago now. It’s a strange feeling being back here with no family around and no furniture left behind. When you enter a new house that’s yet to be lived in, it’s all potential, all ideas and hopes for what that space will become – it’s a blank canvas. But when you go into your old home, now abandoned awaiting its new tenant, it’s not the same vibe. Rather than a blank canvas it’s like one that used to display a beautiful and intricate artwork, but has since been painted over back to plain white, but when you move your finger across the surface you can still feel the bumps and imperfections of the old artwork beneath. As I take my last walk through the house I’ve called home for twenty out of my twenty two years I notice and appreciate all those imperfections that come with many years of living somewhere. The spot on the carpet that got burnt and subsequently covered when mum tried to put a log that was too big into the fireplace, the old hook on the wall in the hallway that used to hold a long since forgotten painting, the random side door I’ve used maybe twice that I had to chisel away at in order the close last time I used it. It’s these little oddities I think I’ll miss when I’m living in a newly built house.
Translating Observation | Observation 1 | Noah Hodgson
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