Attic Space

The hidden, forgotten space of the house. The place where the past is kept, jumbled together, disordered, at bay but overwhelming. It's all just a thin plaster wall away but it's where we keep the skeletons, bury the bodies, keep the treasures we no longer need or really want but cannot bear to part with. The high chair in which my grown daughter once gurgled and laughed and refused to cooperate. Dusty boxes of forgotten, redundant toys forlorn but hopeful of a grinning nostalgic rediscovery. The empty clean space in the dust awaiting the return of the box of Christmas decoration. And over by the bare brick wall, sitting atop the stack of holiday luggage, the first Mrs Rochester.