How to Build a Rosenbury
Jessica L. Clancy
The only thing that was left of Mrs. Rosenbury’s house was parts of the foundation. Partially covered with a thick green layer of moss and soil that resulted from years of decomposing leaves. Grape vines wrapped themselves around the structure before it fell. Berry bushes filled in the areas that the grapevines did not. A dome was created in its place big enough to house a world of imagination, but small enough to keep my father’s watchful eyes away. My little body wriggled its way in on my stomach lifting up patches of damp leaves. My father told me little of Mrs. Rosenbury’s life. She always provided me and my sisters with candy.
There is nothing left in the house, only a rusted gas can that I suspect ended up there many years after Mrs. Rosenbury died. This gas can becomes my tea pot. I pour the tea into an empting cup. It is the only way imaginary tea can keep flowing. I am her now. The shape-shifting memories of children come to my doorstep laughing. They open their empty hands like minds, so that I may fill them with a red piece of candy. They chase each other through my walls. They are just passing through. This is my home. I don’t know what she looked like; I never asked. I picture her wearing a moss colored shawl, hair tangled and matted, arms berry stained with age; skin wearing thin. The nature and frame of my mind was that of the concrete, that peeked through a lush green carpet of moss, hidden and free.
I built the image of Mrs. Rosenbury off of the very crumbled foundation of what my father had mentioned: She always had candy for the children. Where there is empty space, there is possibility for an image to take its place. We embody the concepts and images we have to work with, or choose to focus on. We are always complete. My imagination flooded in to fill what wasn’t there. When we kill what we think exists, we bring to life what might. Mrs. Rosenbury represents infinite possibility, even in death.
We all build what we believe to be permanent structures. There is a swollen, tingling and blue pride of our knuckles, hardened skin of our persistence, laying the block of our philosophy, reinforcing an idea. When I stare at something like it is finished, it begs to evolve, be re-built, changed, destroyed and re-created. It wants to live; have life breathed into it. It is gasping for air, stagnant and musty. We can open the windows of our minds. I compress the chest of this place again and again until its heart starts to pump on its own. Please come, sit down, feel free to lay a block or two.
The sky can be seen through the top of the thicket, black and threatening, but I am still hidden. Sound penetrates. I can hear them passing, but I stay quiet. Startled birds cry out at me for being so concealed. Some of them nest in Mrs. Rosenbury’s hair. She stands her ground. Sways with a harsh wind. Her weathered body and warm heart embrace me, take me in. Light pours in through her eyes. Rain touches her parted lips and cleanses her body, seeping into her soil, feeding her roots so that she can bear sweet red gifts for the tiny visitors that perch themselves on her doorstep with delight. A cupped grape leaf fills with water and empties with its own weight.
Here lies infinite possibility without the death of thought, without the death of Mrs. Rosenbury. We carry the soul of each other’s image in the pocket of possibility. What lies at the root of our being, feeding us all? The house was alive. The house was an organism. It was the body of Mrs. Rosenbury. When I call it an organism, I see it as a system. The words we choose to use will form the way we think. What tools are you using to build your philosophy? What words are we using to build our homes?
Who lived in the house with Mrs. Rosenbury before she died, I wondered? Was she lonely? There is a significant difference between solitude and loneliness. I was alone on this old foundation lacking a frame, walls or boundaries. My solitude here was used constructively. What do we use our voids for? What do we think we are lacking? We must let go of our attachment to what we think we don't have, to appreciate what has taken its place.
I realize that I am still pouring imaginary tea. Into the cup. Out of the cup. Siphon. Reservoir. Existent? Non-existent? Why do we chase after the tea pouring out of the cup when there is more to replace it? Why do we think that taking care of the tea that has left our cup is more important than taking care of the tea that is here and now? We sometimes grasp on to things that will slip through our palms like liquid, because we did not feel that we had a choice to let them go. Other times events replay in our head over and over again begging for a different ending. Did that event ever really end? Are you dead? What else can we use to fill in the blank? How else could it have ended?
Being aware of our need to fill in the blank and our need to answer questions will hopefully inspire us to formulate new questions. In this way we are not stuck in the rut of expecting different outcomes by asking the same questions. Mrs. Rosenbury, I am told, was much different than I had imagined upon closer view. I honor her in a way that she may not have thought to honor herself. Nothing leaves us. We carry our homes around. Children run through the walls of our mind. Ghosts will drag chains in the same patterns over and over. Please, set them free and send them on their way with a piece of candy. Your monsters are only parts of ourselves badly in need of love. Why are we scared to let them go with something always there to take their place? What will you choose to build on? I build Mrs. Rosenbury out of kindness and generosity.
Sometime things happen to dampen our creativity. Sometimes our environment will not foster infinite play and thought. Plan your escape. Protect yourself. Not everyone has the luxury of freely building their own philosophy. Those of us that can might choose to grab the hand of one whose thoughts are diminishing and help them stay playing with possibility, while keeping themselves active in a game that never dies, but is eternally reborn. Life. Not just your own, but the system of all life. If you listen carefully you can hear its heart beating.
There is nothing left in the house, only a rusted gas can that I suspect ended up there many years after Mrs. Rosenbury died. This gas can becomes my tea pot. I pour the tea into an empting cup. It is the only way imaginary tea can keep flowing. I am her now. The shape-shifting memories of children come to my doorstep laughing. They open their empty hands like minds, so that I may fill them with a red piece of candy. They chase each other through my walls. They are just passing through. This is my home. I don’t know what she looked like; I never asked. I picture her wearing a moss colored shawl, hair tangled and matted, arms berry stained with age; skin wearing thin. The nature and frame of my mind was that of the concrete, that peeked through a lush green carpet of moss, hidden and free.
I built the image of Mrs. Rosenbury off of the very crumbled foundation of what my father had mentioned: She always had candy for the children. Where there is empty space, there is possibility for an image to take its place. We embody the concepts and images we have to work with, or choose to focus on. We are always complete. My imagination flooded in to fill what wasn’t there. When we kill what we think exists, we bring to life what might. Mrs. Rosenbury represents infinite possibility, even in death.
We all build what we believe to be permanent structures. There is a swollen, tingling and blue pride of our knuckles, hardened skin of our persistence, laying the block of our philosophy, reinforcing an idea. When I stare at something like it is finished, it begs to evolve, be re-built, changed, destroyed and re-created. It wants to live; have life breathed into it. It is gasping for air, stagnant and musty. We can open the windows of our minds. I compress the chest of this place again and again until its heart starts to pump on its own. Please come, sit down, feel free to lay a block or two.
The sky can be seen through the top of the thicket, black and threatening, but I am still hidden. Sound penetrates. I can hear them passing, but I stay quiet. Startled birds cry out at me for being so concealed. Some of them nest in Mrs. Rosenbury’s hair. She stands her ground. Sways with a harsh wind. Her weathered body and warm heart embrace me, take me in. Light pours in through her eyes. Rain touches her parted lips and cleanses her body, seeping into her soil, feeding her roots so that she can bear sweet red gifts for the tiny visitors that perch themselves on her doorstep with delight. A cupped grape leaf fills with water and empties with its own weight.
Here lies infinite possibility without the death of thought, without the death of Mrs. Rosenbury. We carry the soul of each other’s image in the pocket of possibility. What lies at the root of our being, feeding us all? The house was alive. The house was an organism. It was the body of Mrs. Rosenbury. When I call it an organism, I see it as a system. The words we choose to use will form the way we think. What tools are you using to build your philosophy? What words are we using to build our homes?
Who lived in the house with Mrs. Rosenbury before she died, I wondered? Was she lonely? There is a significant difference between solitude and loneliness. I was alone on this old foundation lacking a frame, walls or boundaries. My solitude here was used constructively. What do we use our voids for? What do we think we are lacking? We must let go of our attachment to what we think we don't have, to appreciate what has taken its place.
I realize that I am still pouring imaginary tea. Into the cup. Out of the cup. Siphon. Reservoir. Existent? Non-existent? Why do we chase after the tea pouring out of the cup when there is more to replace it? Why do we think that taking care of the tea that has left our cup is more important than taking care of the tea that is here and now? We sometimes grasp on to things that will slip through our palms like liquid, because we did not feel that we had a choice to let them go. Other times events replay in our head over and over again begging for a different ending. Did that event ever really end? Are you dead? What else can we use to fill in the blank? How else could it have ended?
Being aware of our need to fill in the blank and our need to answer questions will hopefully inspire us to formulate new questions. In this way we are not stuck in the rut of expecting different outcomes by asking the same questions. Mrs. Rosenbury, I am told, was much different than I had imagined upon closer view. I honor her in a way that she may not have thought to honor herself. Nothing leaves us. We carry our homes around. Children run through the walls of our mind. Ghosts will drag chains in the same patterns over and over. Please, set them free and send them on their way with a piece of candy. Your monsters are only parts of ourselves badly in need of love. Why are we scared to let them go with something always there to take their place? What will you choose to build on? I build Mrs. Rosenbury out of kindness and generosity.
Sometime things happen to dampen our creativity. Sometimes our environment will not foster infinite play and thought. Plan your escape. Protect yourself. Not everyone has the luxury of freely building their own philosophy. Those of us that can might choose to grab the hand of one whose thoughts are diminishing and help them stay playing with possibility, while keeping themselves active in a game that never dies, but is eternally reborn. Life. Not just your own, but the system of all life. If you listen carefully you can hear its heart beating.