Right Where You Are Sitting

Exploration #1

"Write ten things about where you are sitting right now that you hadn't noticed when you sat down. Use your senses. Do it quickly. Do not censor. Okay, begin."

Location: Home, Front Porch

1) The ancient paint on the inside of the door frame is cracking. While I've taken notice of this before, I've never noticed that beside there being many horizontal cracks, there are also three long vertical cracks in the paint running from the top of the door frame down to just below the half-way point.

2) The radiator to my left is poorly painted and ancient stains are beginning to show through.

3) The door between the porch and the main house is so worn that instead of having a sharp edge, it is now almost completely rounded below the doorknob.

4) The light coming through the front door is highlighting the dust that is hidden beneath the table next to the couch. A perfect square is visible where the floor gets swept and regular use as opposed to the floor space beneath the table.

5) There is a spot just above and to the right of the keyhole on the front door where there remains some clear tape that once covered the entire keyhole.

6) There is a water spot in one corner of one ceiling tile on the north end of the porch.

7)  Across the street, I can see a picnic table sitting in the park. The table is clearly not on level ground because the north-west corner of the table dips lower than the rest of the table.

8) The driveway is visible from where I am sitting and the grass next to the driveway is matted down where it has been driven over repeatedly.

9) I see a family portrait that was taken in the 1800's and brought to America from Czechoslovakia. It has a giant, heavy frame that is made of wood. Some of the wood has an intricate shell pattern but parts of that pattern have been worn or chipped off. One corner is almost completely missing.

10) Directly across from me I see a clock that regularly freezes and loses track of time. The face of the clock is shiny gold and the bottom, front of the clock has vertical scratches from where it once fell off the wall and fell behind my piano.