Pastels

Georgian construction.  Outside, one of many similar-looking conjoined sets of conjoined sets of twins.  Little to distinguish one house from another in the row, a planter filled with flowers, a miniature hedge of boxwood.

The insides are distinct, their colors, shapes, and textures.  Enter at the front.  Flat walls with ornamentation, shaped from plaster, not wood like in modern buildings or marble as in old.  Pastel colors; light light-blues, greys, greens and purples.  Wide, wood stairs with wooden balustrades.  Sometimes marble, vast, expansive, open.  Always, open and welcoming, a type of freedom.  When enclosed, the distinct European smell of varnish and cigarette smoke, sweet and tangy, permeates the stairwell.  There is knowing that I am one of a long line of people who will trespass, carelessly, leaving no mark more important than any other.

I am still, aware that I am a very small part of something much larger than myself, something much more important.

Vast in reach and scope.