The Soul of a House

A house is in itself a structure within a structure. Hidden places are the structure within. Inside the walls, the attic, or underneath. This is the place where the soul of the house lives. A skeleton housing wires and pipes, plumbing and insulation. 
When I was a child my parents and I lived in a house with a hidden crawl space between the living room and the master bedroom. I barely remember the house except for it was considered cool that a person could go inside of the wall. For me I think it was an unconscious imprint of the concept of a secret house within the house where you have to go through the walls to get to it and, I don’t think I’m alone in this concept given such movies and stories as Coraline and the Spider Wick Chronicles. Even the Chronicles of Narnia involved some sort of passage to this fantasy land and I’m sure that there are a whole lot of others.
I often have dreams of being inside of such houses where there are rooms hidden from the rest of the house and entry denied by broken stair cases or missing floors, missing doors or, these rooms themselves are too dangerous to be entered due to poor maintenance.
In houses I have squatted in or otherwise entered I often find myself wondering what the faded wallpaper looked like when it was new, if good workmanship went into a set of stairs that now creak when stepped on. I sometimes would close my eyes and listen for the voice of this place that someone once loved till it was abandoned to the elements to slowly work their way into its structure till it can become one with the earth again.
In time, houses become their own ghosts. Usage leaves behind wear and tear. The weather honing character into the outer structure while the inner structure is filled with memories that no amount of remodeling can take away and those memories leave behind an emotion in that silence that is the very soul of it.

 Salutation Pending 
Johnny R Draper 

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