The house breathes. It’s a subtle breath of course. I woke up around three am, my wrist pulsating with pain. I had left one of the glass panels opened, and I felt a heart beat. Can’t explain it. Something about night air. I-heard-the-house-breathe. It needs to, its construction goes stale if it doesn’t breathe, and the only way, really, is when it is inhabited. We help it, we might even be the blood running through its veins! We bring it back to life, carrying oxygen to the various organs, to the various rooms. She never quite got any of it, Joan. She wasn’t the sophisticated type, she could never understand that less is more, the purity of the line, the plenitude of mathematics, lights blasting in unapologetically on flat surfaces. “It is not flattering ”she said, squinting in my direction, she continued: “We are too old for this, it s like a constant close up. I m not sure I want to see our toenails get thicker and grey!” She would have rather taken a trip to Italy, we could have stayed in various palaces, etc. Then she left.Has she really gone though? Can she leave behind, twelve years of marriage?! Or is there a part i haven’t gotten to yet, in this labyrinthine house. In other news, my wrist is not getting better. I have to face it. I don't know that I will ever be able to play again. Of course we sort of knew that, and at the same time, we didn’t. My fingers are stiff with pain, especially at night, he explained it all to me, the doctor, it’s going to take time, and it is important I shan’t get used to pain either, so I should take my pain medicine. Which I do. Three a day. Nothing much happens when i take them, the pain is still there, but my attitude towards it changes. I become wise and almost optimistic..or is it indifferent? I enter the world of normal with those pills. A world in which I don’t worry that much, a world in which I communicate with my house, it’s all square and fare. Joan wrote: “The wrist is metaphorically seen as the bridge between our means and our ends, connecting the power of the hand to the guiding vision of the mind. When it is broken, it forces us to question our ability to manipulate our world, and confront our vulnerability. You’ve broken yours. I feel our marriage has suffered a fracture of sorts too. I need time”. Before leaving, she asked if she could have a room of her own, to make it her own, that it would help, and I explained to her that all the rooms were taken and that at the same time, all the rooms were hers too, except they were mine. And as long as she accepted that...
