This was written for my AVID class.
Description of Place Essay

10-31-05

Each day, either from a long walk home, or returning from anywhere in the world, I would run up the long, dark, staircase from where the light bulb that used to illuminate it, burned out a month ago. Looking up these stairs, I see light shining through it. Whether the door is locked on the other side or not, I can push it open, entering into my salvation. It might not be the best place in the world, but it’s my own. I can make anything I want out of it. Even create it to look new. All of what I normally do deals with me in this room. Because of that, I don’t know whether to think of this small yet cozy room as my own Heaven or Hell.

The walls are painted a darker sky blue, making me feel depress at times. The day bed consists of a light and dark green comforter and sheets, adding along two printed blankets—one of tiger stripes, the other showing my Halloween spirit for this month while adding in warmth. The iron headboard feels out of place, but since it’s shaped in a curled up motion, I can hang things on it like a hair band or a bracelet. The rest of the furniture, besides the spinning chair by my desk, is made of different kinds of wood. It’s funny how I don’t like a lot of the qualities in this room like the stained carpet, yet, by the end of the day when the sun is just setting; it feels like the safest place in the world.

Good and bad always goes on in here even before the room officially became mine. Before, when I was only 4, it belonged to my dad known to me as the empty room with a bed and a computer. Later in years, it began to belong to my brother and I, the one bed becoming a bunk bed. During that time, something was going on in our lives, causing my brother to say words in his sleep that could even make me cry. That room was never a sanctuary to me then because of all that was going on, especially for the fact that someone kept locking me in. After being locked in so many times, my uncle fixed the door so it can never be locked even though there’s a lock still on it till this day even. As years kept going past, I remember being yelled at, witnessing my sisters or brother get hurt in there, and the spot on the wall where someone punched through it. When the room finally became my own, it took a while before the room began to feel safe. That visible hole on the wall has been covered and the room got a makeover, yet the memories in it can’t be forgotten.

Those might be a few reasons I might think of it as Hell, but what keeps it my Heaven are the even stronger memories: my first prayer, scary movie, a lot of things. Even eating ice scream in there when I was younger. When my cousins came over, or when my siblings and I just want to watch TV, we’ll all jump onto the top bunk and watch TV even though the bottom bunk had an easier view. The day when that room became mine, I can remember standing by the once cracked wall, anxious to fix it all up to make it what I want like an artist with an empty canvas. It’s been five years since then and I’m still treating the room as an empty canvas. About each morning when I wake up, I always look out my window smiling for no apparent reason.