Hallway
I wrote this for a Narration class last weekend, based on an extemporaneous speech about “my favorite room”; the homework assignment was to expand and clean-up the speech, without listening to the recording! We were surprised in the next session when our submissions were shuffled and given to other classmates. After hearing a classmate read this, I thought it would make a good post.
I dithered a bit about what to write; my house is fairly nondescript. A stock 1980 vaguely Spanish-style California townhome, like a million others. Quite a bit of work since buying in 2002, new kitchen, floors, and the like. But there isn’t a lot of me in any particular room.
Except for the upstairs hallway.
The upstairs hallway runs from the stairs to the master bedroom, guest bath, and guest bedroom. It’s four feet wide by around twelve feet long. Oak floors, taupe walls.
On one side, constructed a set of shallow floor-to-ceiling bookshelves out of a discontinued IKEA media cabinet. It’s loaded with my collection of paperbacks, mostly science-fiction novels and anthologies, which I’ve been collecting more or less nonstop since my teens. There are several hundred, in roughly alphabetical order by author.
On the other side, my race medals. Since I began running races in 2012, I’ve finished 73 half and seven full marathons; two IRONMAN 70.3 triathlons; endurance trail runs; and countless shorter races. There are literally hundreds of medals, mounted to the wall by means of another IKEA hack — this time, a shallow kitchen rail system.
This hallway says a lot about me. On one side, the bookish sci-fi nerd (a title I wear proudly); on the other, the endurance athlete and collector of bling. As I walk past, I can stop and point at any random book or medal and instantly remember an important moment from my past.
And that’s why it’s my favorite room in the house, thought it be not a room at all.
