reflejos

I do not blog. It seems like a strange idea; I'm supposed to spill my guts on the internet for anyone to read? Still, I figured after living in the house for nine months I ought to contribute something to the lovely communal cyberspace. Much has happened since the summer when most people were writing that deserves to be immortalized.

Yes, it's been ten months since most people moved in and almost exactly a year since we had our first pasta meet-and-greet at Mat and Nate's old apartment. When Kirk and Dawn first told me about the community house, my mind immediately leapt to an image of twenty dreadlocked, unwashed hippies sleeping in one apartment; they were tucked away in hammocks, sleeping bags, beneath staircases and the really tiny ones peeked out of dresser drawers like baby birds in a nest.

Yes, I thought.

All right, so most people ended up bathing fairly regularly and sleeping in beds. That is, except for Nate, who actually prefers the floor, and Mat, who spent six months alternating between a narrow closet door laid across some cinder blocks and the rooftop, dressed in pelts and furs. He is now volunteering to live in a basement cage if necessary. (Yes, one of the community house wonders is that we have cages in our basement, for some inexplicable reason. We've joked about locking our friend Jake Carey in there with nothing but a typewriter so that his wittiness will be forced to spill out on paper and he will become the writer he was meant to be).

But I digress, as usual. This blogging thing is harder than it looks.

We dreamed about the summer a lot this winter. Cold nights were often spent lounging in the 3rd floor kitchen reminiscing:
Remember that time we carried Suzanne on top of that table from the Salem bridge?
Or:
If I squint really hard, I can can almost see us in the backyard, drinking iced coffee and dozing on that huge blanket!
...How about the taste of Dave's sangria, like nothing you've ever had before?

...Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon, and the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields. Eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?
No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. Instead I'm... naked in the dark.

Haha. Winter in Beverly is hardly Mount Doom at the end of all things, but needless to say, I think we are collectively thirsting for some life. The first tinges of spring are beginning to wiggle forth from wherever they come, but I dare not hope too much. March is such a tease, and I hate playing games in such important matters. :)

Highlights from the last few months include the installation of balconies at long last, killer Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas parties (Halloween for the neighborhood kids, Thanksgiving and Christmas for friends), a house retreat to Maine, the additions of Chuck, Phoebe, Dan, Sergiy, and Tim, a fundraiser for Haiti following the earthquake, and now a greenhouse being built on our balcony! I apologize for giving the fast-food version of all that's happened, but I'm tired from the crippling challenge of my first blog entry.

Speculating about the future of the house seems impossible at this point, but I do know that it's been beautiful living with such interesting people and I hope it continues. I love all of these dirty hippies wholeheartedly.