It is cluttered with books and papers. Sticky notes are attached to every surface — some so old, they’ve fluttered to the floor and become buried under notebooks and binders, which is why I probably forget a lot of things. You had this conversation on Thursday; replace insurance cards in car; remember to come into your own before seeking the love of a man; remember that it is okay to be who you are; pay cable bill. In this house, my soul wakes up at 5:00 sharp every morning without an alarm clock and watches the sun rise over a plate of eggs and toast with strong coffee it only takes with a clump of sugar. It wears fuzzy sweaters and gray lounge pants, and a fire constantly crackles in an old, brick fireplace. It pays someone with literary discussion to chop wood and store it in a rectangular, wooden crate on the porch, because my soul likes the cold weather specifically so it has a reason to wrap itself in warm blankets and drink hot chocolate appropriately.
My soul’s job is to make sure it zips the sometimes opposing sides of my mind and heart together, so that I can get around like a functioning human being. But, you know, sometimes zippers get stuck, come unstitched, or just completely fall apart, and then the soul has to remove its needle and thread from the crafts closet in the hallway where the carpet is lumpy from where the cat keeps digging its claws, and it spends a long time trying to stitch itself back together again, because no one ever taught it how to sew and its learning all the basics on its own.
Regardless of what the brain thinks on occasion, the soul loves its house. It loves the way smoke is always billowing in thin, gray puffs out of the chimney and that it got a new coat of yellow paint over the wooden exterior. It likes that it is young with an old heart, an old way of appreciating things. It may not be the most well-endowed or modern house on the lot, but it appreciates its build, its sturdiness — even when certain conditions make it worry the foundation will fall through and all will be lost.
It is not a soul that puts on airs. If it is cold, you will know it; if it is warm, you will know it. It is a soul of ponderance, perseverance, and faith. It has the ability to be what the flesh at times denies it. The soul’s greatest challenge is mastering the body — keeping the brain and heart aligned, the flesh resigned. The soul is that deepest, sacred desire within us — that which we fight against by day and relish at night. What the soul seeks to bring its house is love. Love throughout and within, so that when we carry ourselves from place to place, we miss nothing, because the comfort of home we seek is often right where we stand.