Nesting
It’s 11.17pm in my living room. Body stiff from a busy shift waiting the floor. I fed my cat a piece of leftover Kingfish from the restaurant. She’s meowing loudly now as she runs across my living room. Or kitchen. There’s no partition between.
The leaves on my rubber plant have dried up and fallen. Two remain, right up top. I’ve been meaning to change the soil, but the sacks are so heavy.
There’s an old canvas sitting on my keyboard, a paint by numbers I completed with my ex. Papaya, pomegranate, lemons and leaves colouring an unfinished background. An activity that underscored our denouement. I’ve been saving the canvas for a collage I’m collecting op shopped magazines for. I grieve the piles of old Dollys and Girlfriends I threw away without thinking as a child.
Beside me is a steamer I have no other place for. I leave it set up in the lounge beside the couch. The nook it resides in against my small bookshelf houses a cat carrier and bag of sewing accessories. My sewing machine sits unused on my desk, I never figured out how to thread the bobbin.
In front of the sewing machine are air dry clay incense holders, moulded with a friend in my courtyard on a sunny afternoon. We have been meaning to paint them together ever since.
There is a bag of unwanted Christmas gifts under the desk I haven’t had the heart to part with. A collection of props for a photoshoot last year I borrowed from my Nonna, that each visit I do mean to return to her.
The wall is filled with art. Ripped from coffee table books, given as gifts, crafted with love. My brother observed the prevalence of porn in my apartment; ‘explicit content’ he labelled the subtle nudity that decorates the room. Failing to notice the actual porn displayed on a shelf of vintage Playboys from 70s Australia.
Hannah Horvath narrates my evening as I rewatch old episodes of Girls to wind down from my shift. I wonder if the reed diffuser next to the TV is still perfumed. It should probably be replaced.
The courtyard is full of fallen leaves. Summer produce dried in its pots. I used the last of my basil in a garden herb pesto two days ago. The cherry tomatoes in risoni for my partner and me. The pesto through a focaccia.
In the next room my bed sits amidst piles of clothes. One to be washed and re-homed or sold. One my friend’s loans for a shoot I styled a year ago. One semi clean items I could wear again before laundry day. One randomised garments I’m using as loungewear this week. There are borrowed t-shirts on my dresser I don’t know when I’ll return. The bedroom door is partially sanded, I wanted to paint it sage to match the wardrobe. One day maybe the front door too, a warm welcome of loving yellow. The fitted sheet is ripped, a bamboo cotton I can’t afford to replace. A daddy long legs lives in the corner. It climbs a wall I’ve started to fill with crafts. I grieve the sketches that filled my bedroom wall in my old share-house, disposed of in hopes I would continue to draw. The pages of my sketchbook sit empty and waiting.
I found another daddy long legs next to the cupboards of my bathroom. I wonder if the two have crossed paths in the time they’ve lived with me. There are ants in the courtyard that make their way in on hot thirsty days. I’ve seen them trail into a small hole in the bathroom. Do spiders catch ants in their web? The towel on the rack is damp. I’m yet to put my washing away.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll put away my clothes. Wash the garments in need of new homes, return the loans to my loved ones. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a fresh towel, make room for a new load of laundry. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go to the nursery, buy the soil to repot my rubber plant, arid and frail. Maybe tomorrow I’ll read one of the books on my shelf, adopted from op shops over the years and left to fade in my home instead. Maybe tomorrow I’ll sweep the leaves, plant winter vegetables. Maybe tomorrow I’ll collage over the fruit on my keyboard, or sketch and fill that wall in my bedroom. Maybe tomorrow I’ll thread the bobbin.
Carla Costantino is an emerging Naarm based writer, blurring lines between prose, auto-fiction and personal essay. Her work careens across genres, finding beauty one day and rage the next. Covering observational composition, to social commentary, to compelling narrative. Her bleeding heart is on a platter for consumption at https://substack.com/@ratsinmyhead?r=rcldt&utm_medium=ios .