A split second

A. is snoozing on the sofa, while I am trying to find bits of official correspondences. We have two folders for this, Paperology I and Paperology II, with dividers marked ‘council’ or ‘health’ and so on. The bits of papers I am looking for are not in their ‘logical’ sections but I find them eventually.

As I’m getting ready to go out, A. wakes up and goes to the bathroom. I stop in the doorway of the living room to wait for A., to run the shopping list past him. And at that very moment, when I all I am doing is standing still and watching, in a single moment the physical and temporal marks of some 20 years of us in this flat, the wall with shelves and with stuff on them, everyday stuff, remarkable stuff, unremarkable stuff, tools, bits of paper from who knows when and dust from around the same time, our two desks against the wall, with monitors and speakers and books and more stuff, computer chairs, floor, sofa with rumpled throw and cushions, bookshelves with books on top of other books, some of our art, plants, clear carpeted floor, all of it felt just right. A lived alived space.