Spaces of Experience

Profession: The Narrative
A young woman sped as she made a tight turn round the bookcase to her left. Shielding a stack of typed pages from the wind, she half jogged, half walked to class. Her watch read 5:05.
The same woman, bespectacled sat across from an old man, at a table. Three floors below this room was stationed the bookcase that she had had a close encounter with four years ago. She flipped a page of the vocabulary test booklet on the table toward him. She said “canine”, and looked at him. The man looked at the page, hesitated, and responded, “mammal”.
Eight years later, six inches from the computer screen, bluish light illuminated her tired expression. Absently her hand came to the top of her head, and she dragged her fingers through her hair, pulling her head to the side. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen. She was caught on a sentence. Two of the walls in the room were thick with bookshelves pregnant with books. The spines bore impressively similar titles; between a hundred of them there were 40 instances of the word “aphasia”, 30 of “experimental” and 15 of the word “neurological”.
The same woman, sixteen years older, sat with a mother and her young child. This room also had bookshelves, but most of the lighting was natural, entering through a window. The child read slowly from a paperback booklet on the table between them. The mother followed along over her child’s shoulder. She mouthed the words silently, and smiled at each pause. “The seashells, although moderately sized, were prized by Sam, and he was made very…” The little girl made more of a ‘th’ sound at the beginning of the word ‘Sam’, but she made each other ‘s’ deliberately and precisely. She finished her story, and as she left the office with her mother, the little girl took one lollipop from the bowl and put it in her schoolbag.

My Personal Narrative
I enter my home after a complete day of flitting to and from appointments, classes, work and friends. The dishes in the sink are overflowing, I look obtusely at them, as if they had something to say to me about their bothersome existence. I pick up a cup from the counter and half-heartedly wash it, I put it in the dishwasher anyway. As I try to decide whether to do the plates or the silverware first, I notice the column of sunlight that is shining on my torso through the kitchen window. As I enjoy the warmth on my belly, I place the palm of my hand on the countertop –straight into a puddle of dish water. Intensely irritated, I sigh and leave the kitchen, ambling into the backyard.
I rest my spine, laying my body down vertebrae by vertebrae, I feel the slight resistance offered by the grass. It is slightly springy underneath the towel. I increase the angle of my body, and as it becomes obtuse I can feel every muscle I use. The serene flow of movement is jilted when I look unthinkingly into the afternoon sun. Losing my balance, I flop onto my back. As soon as I close my eyes, I worry for a moment. Is there something I should be doing? I ignore this wild, panicky thought, and instead I consider the weight of my body, the shape of my skeleton as it rests naturally.
As I lay on my back I can hear the bodies of birds whistling through the still air above me. I wonder where they are going, that thought reminds me of something. Do I need to go somewhere? No, I quickly determine.
Soon I feel my shirt absorbing the heat from the sun, and I resist the temptation to check for a sunburn. A shadow rolls over my face and when I open my eyes they are instantly nudged closed again by an inquisitive canine snout. It was a short break, but my thoughts are usually curious and soon enough I manage to find something I can do.