There is another thing our old house does in the deep of the night. I have heard it before, and now I wait for it to happen. The house releases the whole day’s footsteps. All day we press down minutely on the wide old floorboards, moving about on small, regular errands, from room to room. It takes hours for the boards to readjust, to squeak back up the nails, for the old fibers of the pinewood to recover their give. As they do, they reproduce the sounds of footsteps. At night our maze of pathways is audibly retraced. I am used to it, as is mother, but sometimes a wakeful guest is frightened. I can understand this. For now, as I rise and I stand in half-darkness in the doorway of my bedroom, I hear the distinct creak of footsteps proceeding toward me, then past me, over to my bed. It’s very cold. My skin prickles. I feel the breath of my own passage, as though my dead self and living self briefly met on that doorway to sleep. - Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum More inspiration for Roaring. Two shows down. Matinee at 5 today.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 15:46:17 +0000