Behind curtain number…

I’m one of those people who if walking or riding in a car after dark, will compulsively stare into strangers windows. If the curtains aren’t drawn and there’s light shining out of it, I will peer in as I pass. I never stop, that would be creepy, but I turn my head and wonder who lives there and how they can stand the colour on their walls, mentally rearrange their furniture or marvel at the loveliness of the decor. Randomly trawling through the blog-o-sphere, as I was just doing, has the same feeling of peering into people’s windows except instead of getting a glimpse of someone’s life you see them metaphorically dancing naked to their latest favorite song. You can’t be sure if they’re exercising or knowingly flaunting themselves in the hope some nut case stares into the window and sees them. I wonder how many people stare into my blog-window and think, “I’m glad I don’t live next door to her.”?

In the 3-D world, I have no neighbors. This is one of the benefits of living about five hundred feet from a sewage treatment thingy. We don’t (can’t) often use the garden, but at least there’s no one playing loud music at two in the morning except for me. That doesn’t mean we don’t have lots of passing foot traffic, we do. Half the town’s populace seems to walk or drive their dogs past our house down to the public footpath through the fields by the river. We went down to see it once and spent so much time avoiding evidence of previous visiting dogs that we never went back. I wonder if any of these people ever wonder why all our lower curtains are always closed tight against prying eyes. Our home always looks like no one’s home. They can’t see me dancing in the kitchen, but I am.

If you could look in my window you’d see that my living room floor, where there isn’t piles of sewing paraphernalia, desperately needs vacuuming. The green settee is waiting patiently for a cover to match the giant red blue and white heart shaped rug my friend Liz brought me back from Boston, MA. The boring magnolia walls finally do have some pictures because I hung them from the light fixtures (we didn’t want to make holes in the walls so we can move without filling and painting whole rooms). The very pretty man on the mantel over the never used fireplace is my paternal Grandfather, the very old man with a small boy in the sea is the Goblin with his father (his father was a lot older than my grandfather born in 1901). The small organ gathering dust in the corner is the Goblin’s. He taught himself how to play, but it’s been silent since he became clinically depressed. We’re going to move it upstairs onto the landing and move my sewing table down stairs. There’s a few cobwebs and spiders that need sweeping back outside and the net curtains could use a wash. It wouldn’t win an interior decorating award, but it’s full of love!

The last few days I’ve been ill so I haven’t been dancing. My fever broke early Friday morning, but I’m still poorly. When I wasn’t sleeping today I was mentally working on a story. My stress level is coming down. I think I’ve figured out why my hair is falling out (I’ve lost half my hair this year…I’ve been trying to mentally prepare myself for the worst by reminding myself daily that I look good in hats). Hopefully if I can sort out the problem it’ll all grow back and I’ll be the wild haired woman once again…if not, I’ll be the wild wigged woman! I’m back on my Candida diet (no sugar etc). After two weeks my eczema has cleared and if I didn’t have this stupid virus I’d feel pretty good. Hopefully come Monday I’ll have the physical energy to start chapter 28 of Dancing the Maypole. I’m feeling really positive about finishing it in the not too distant future because I can finally see the Epilogue! I’m going to stick my neck out and use the old favorite…”I think there’s four more chapters.” Though there could be six or ten.