I love this, it’s as representative of the thought process of children, in carrying an idea a step further and further until it becomes another question of sorts, while at the same time, it is a worldly view and comment on life and death, and a perspective of time and space:
The sequence of doors we passed made me think of all the rooms of my past and future. The hospital ward I was born in, classrooms, tents, churches, offices, hotels, museums, nursing homes, the room I’ll die in. (Has it been built yet?) Cars’re rooms. So are woods. Skies’re ceilings. Distances’re walls. Wombs’re rooms made of mothers. Graves’re rooms made of soil. (p. 151)
There is a logical progression of states from life to death, the hospital ward through life’s ‘places’ all the way to a place to die. I love the way Mitchell makes the circuit and brings the end (death) into the future by asking if the room has been built yet.
I like the expansion of space bounded by walls into arenas of open space. The idea of distance being a wall is thought provoking and changes the whole meaning of traveling or escape by leaving. The best: "wombs’re rooms made of mothers." which goes back to birth and ends with "graves’re rooms made of soil" that encompasses the span of a life.
Nice stuff.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Nice indeed. Time to start lurking and send a bit of love your way.
And back at ya, Anne. I’ve gotta get in touch with you about the advice thing which I’ve woefully failed to pursue because of a general lack of enthusiasm about writing. I’ll email you later!