Re: An Unfound Door, Chapter Five
Sep. 16th, 2022 07:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI love the "spend four pages describing a staircase" gothic mode. I really do. I love crowded and disordered spaces in fiction, and I love writing about them.
Meanwhile, my actual personal interior aesthetic is "extreme minimalism + houseplants." I will look at a minimalist interior in magazine photo and think, "You need to get rid of at least half of the things in this room." Both hotel rooms and Ikea mock-up rooms have too many things. Nobody needs all those things.
It's the same with my computer. My folders are immaculately organized, and my desktop is pristine. My email is a series of interlocking folders that function according to a precise system of filters to keep my inbox tidy.
With fewer distractions, it's easier to keep everything clean. I don't think cleanliness is a virtue; I just find airy open spaces relaxing. The most important things to have in a space are plants and sunlight and a comfortable chair, and that's really all you need.
So here's the twist: both of my parents are irredeemable hoarders. My mother was always like this, and she's gotten worse. My father was fairly normal to begin with, but he developed a serious problem as he got older, and then he married a hardcore hoarder. His house is a nightmare, by which I mean that I have nightmares about it. I haven't had any interaction with my father's immediate family for more than five years, but the state of that house still haunts me.
There's an empty quality to ruins that I find aesthetically pleasing, and I also love when architecture is partially broken down so you can see how it works. Meanwhile, not-yet-ruined interior spaces filled with garbage are just about the most literal metaphor you can have for the mentality of refusing to give up on the past because you have no concept of what's meaningful and valuable in the present. It's sad when you see something like that in the real world, but it's super fun when you get to create it yourself in art or fiction.
Meanwhile, my actual personal interior aesthetic is "extreme minimalism + houseplants." I will look at a minimalist interior in magazine photo and think, "You need to get rid of at least half of the things in this room." Both hotel rooms and Ikea mock-up rooms have too many things. Nobody needs all those things.
It's the same with my computer. My folders are immaculately organized, and my desktop is pristine. My email is a series of interlocking folders that function according to a precise system of filters to keep my inbox tidy.
With fewer distractions, it's easier to keep everything clean. I don't think cleanliness is a virtue; I just find airy open spaces relaxing. The most important things to have in a space are plants and sunlight and a comfortable chair, and that's really all you need.
So here's the twist: both of my parents are irredeemable hoarders. My mother was always like this, and she's gotten worse. My father was fairly normal to begin with, but he developed a serious problem as he got older, and then he married a hardcore hoarder. His house is a nightmare, by which I mean that I have nightmares about it. I haven't had any interaction with my father's immediate family for more than five years, but the state of that house still haunts me.
There's an empty quality to ruins that I find aesthetically pleasing, and I also love when architecture is partially broken down so you can see how it works. Meanwhile, not-yet-ruined interior spaces filled with garbage are just about the most literal metaphor you can have for the mentality of refusing to give up on the past because you have no concept of what's meaningful and valuable in the present. It's sad when you see something like that in the real world, but it's super fun when you get to create it yourself in art or fiction.
