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Come Inside*

Who knows if they’re home, and honestly, if you could get away with it, would you care?  I guess that’s the real question–would you enter the house, and if yes, how would you come inside?

Please don’t forget to rifle through their mailbox (comment section) below and see what messages people have sent before you go inside.  And then return from time to time to place your own notes in the mailbox for future readers to find.

* You may encounter children or children’s items inside the house.

Thank Yous:

There are many people I need to thank in the construction of this piece beginning with Allison at Lunacy Web who did the coding and is available for other freelance projects.  This project was made possible from a generous gift of time and ideas from the Ford Foundation.  I would also like to thank the ChickieNob and Wolvog for their contributions.

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114 comments

1 Heather { 11.30.09 at 3:08 pm }

We bring back a Christmas ornament from the places we travel. Our tree is bursting with memories of years past.

2 Suzy { 11.30.09 at 3:16 pm }

we always bring a magnet back and put it on the fridge. our fridge is pretty full though!

3 Tara { 11.30.09 at 3:34 pm }

We dont’ get out too much so there isn’t anything traditional that we seek out to bring back. Usually just a stack of photographs!

4 Jill { 11.30.09 at 3:41 pm }

I do magnets too. I love my collection but my fridge does look a bit messy. Oh well!

5 Mary { 11.30.09 at 3:53 pm }

And they lived happily ever after. . . .

6 Mrs. Gamgee { 11.30.09 at 3:59 pm }

We haven’t traveled a lot together yet, but we did make sure to bring back a Christmas tree ornament from New York. Other collections you would find? Not many, unless you count books. Oh, and if you were to come by at this time of year, you would be able to check out my collection of Nativity sets (to be the subject of a post sometime in December).

7 Elizabeth { 11.30.09 at 4:25 pm }

I am, actually, a mermaid!

(omg, this is SO MUCH FUN!!!)

8 Elizabeth { 11.30.09 at 4:27 pm }

The last picture I took was of the little girl I was babysitting this morning, as she grinned at me from the high chair while eating raisins. She didn’t want any pasta (“hot”), or carrots (they got thrown right into the trash), or turkey (it was spit out with a look of “how could you DO this to me???”). Just raisins.

9 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 4:52 pm }

I’m not really in the mood for tea.

10 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 4:57 pm }

“For hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

11 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:04 pm }

I don’t feel uneasy or scared. Curious, maybe. Same as I’d feel in someone else’s house alone. If they didn’t want me there, they shouldn’t have told me to come in!

12 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:06 pm }

I like to bring back sand from places we go to, but only the first time.

I have a poetry book collection. Willow Trees. But mostly you’ll just find tons of pictures.

13 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:08 pm }

You helped with the laundry if you didn’t do all steps. Argued this one yesterday.

14 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:08 pm }

It’s ok with me if people read my journals after I’m gone. Might be odd before then, though.

15 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:10 pm }

Hope and Faith

16 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:16 pm }

The pink crayon never DID feel like it belonged, but it did its best to fit in anway. For the most part, the other things in the junk drawer didn’t accept it so much, but they did tolerate its presence.

17 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:17 pm }

The last picture was a picture of my children playing with my daughter’s birth brother.

18 Sam { 11.30.09 at 5:20 pm }

that looks like fun – however, please could you also write down anything that is spoken cos I am deaf!! I could not understand what was being said behind door one. Thanks.

19 Baby Smiling In Back Seat { 11.30.09 at 5:22 pm }

#9: “C’est le temps que tu a perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante.” (It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.) from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I have loved that quote since childhood, but clearly there are infertility meanings you can draw.

20 Jendeis { 11.30.09 at 5:31 pm }

I got to the key to your friend’s parent’s house room. It was unsettling. I will go to another room to see if it’s any better.

21 Jendeis { 11.30.09 at 5:33 pm }

This room is much better. What you will see all over my house is art. Art and miscellaneous papers. And JD’s clothes. His unofficial motto: Where It Lays Is Where It Stays.

22 jesspond { 11.30.09 at 5:50 pm }

I’ve got no robots to offer and I’m a girl.

Do you still visit everyone on the blogroll? And everyone who visits the lushery? How about the L&F? If not, who do you not visit?

23 Elizabeth { 11.30.09 at 9:14 pm }

I used to collect little boxes, and would buy at least one wherever we went, but then they got to be too many and I didn’t have anywhere to put them where I could really look at them and enjoy them. I have a treasure-chest shaped box covered in sea shells from Cuba, a little wooden box with two drawers in it from New Zealand (I forget what kind of wood it is) – those are probably the most special ones to me. But mostly we collect books.

24 Elizabeth { 11.30.09 at 9:21 pm }

(Door #8) Oh, I am SUCH a snoop … I am ashamed to admit it (but not so ashamed I won’t admit it), but I LOVE to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, and do so whenever possible. I always check out the medicine cabinet and cupboards under the sink in other people’s bathrooms, and I have been known to read other people’s journals (my sister’s and my cousin’s … though my canny sister knew me well enough to write everything in code). But I also have a tremendous dread of censure, so will also sit stiffly in someone else’s space afraid to touch anything if I think they’ll be coming home soon.

The little song about gravity (?) was a very performance-art-y moment in this house to me! 🙂

I also like how you are using the metaphor of a house with lots of rooms and doors, similar to the way you organized the blogroll.

25 Elizabeth { 11.30.09 at 9:24 pm }

Mmmmm – a nice, hot, steaming cup of rooibos please!

26 Elizabeth { 11.30.09 at 9:26 pm }

I forgot to leave a Door 1 question for you all…. Morning people or night owls?

27 HereWeGoAJen { 11.30.09 at 9:31 pm }

The next day, Alice swore she was going to go out and buy some drawer organizers.

28 calliope { 11.30.09 at 10:42 pm }

“Seymour once said to me – in a crosstown bus, of all places – that all legitimate religious study must lead to unlearning the differences, the illusory differences, between boys and girls, animals and stones, day and night, heat and cold.”
– J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

29 a { 11.30.09 at 10:44 pm }

I guess I am a decent yardstick to measure how far society has devolved…I read like crazy, and yet, I can only quote movies. Sigh. How sad. But, I remember there are some excellent lines in Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

30 a { 11.30.09 at 10:47 pm }

My standard quote upon leaving the subdivision (or arriving at a destination) is “Crap, I forgot the camera.” The last picture I took was of my little one wearing her fairy wings – well, that’s the last one I downloaded, anyway – oh and some pictures for the tax file of things we donated.

31 a { 11.30.09 at 10:49 pm }

I like to bring back particular objects for people. For my nephew, it was animals indigenous to the area I visited. For my niece, paintings. For me, cheesy, touristy crap like t-shirts, plastic wind-up crabs, and when I smoked, lighters.

BTW, I love exploring other people’s houses!

32 a { 11.30.09 at 10:51 pm }

Look at that…I answered Door 8, before I even got there. I have always been someone who sort of lives vicariously through others. I learn from their actions and reactions. So I love to explore surroundings, see possessions, ponder their meanings. Loads of fun!

33 a { 11.30.09 at 10:53 pm }

I knew the two of them were conspiring against me, but now I have proof! My husband is consistently rearranging (or should I say de-arranging) the utensil drawer, and he’s enlisted the help of our daughter. The crayon proves it!

34 Mrs. Hope { 11.30.09 at 11:27 pm }

goodnight, I am a dullard. I loaded this post several times and couldn’t figure anything out. Now I’ve actually sort of figured it out and I need to go to sleep.

35 Another Dreamer { 11.30.09 at 11:39 pm }

I would actually love some hot tea right now, with some sweetener. It normally soothes me and helps to set the emotions aside for a later time… but now all it can do is quiet my heart for a short while.. until the cup runs empty. Hey, I will take what I can get- and man, I so need some tea right now.

36 Circus Princess { 12.01.09 at 4:36 am }

What a great idea 🙂
I collect rocks. Normal rocks, extraordinary rocks, black, white, brown and gray rocks. Round rocks and square rocks. Smooth rocks and rough ones. And every time I pick one up in my house I remember where I found it, what we did, how I felt that day, what smells and sounds surrounded me and what kind of weather we had.

37 Circus Princess { 12.01.09 at 4:38 am }

Door three hides that special drawer we all have in our kitchen/bedroom/bathroom. The JUNK DRAWER filled with forgotten treasures.

38 Half of a Duo, Raising a Duo { 12.01.09 at 6:00 am }

I am starting to collect “found objects” for the boys. I am homeschooling Montessori-style. I’d love some of my SITSas to help out… nothing sharp as they are only 20 mos old.

The door is beautiful. As Aldous Huxley put it, “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern”

That is one beautiful door…

Happy Tuesday!

39 IF Crossroads { 12.01.09 at 7:40 am }

Ever since we were on our honeymoon almost 12 years ago, when we travel, we bring back shot glasses. It’s a tacky collection, not well displayed in our home. In fact, all of the shot glasses are kept in a big Rubbermaid container above our fridge. But, they hold significance to us. Even if we fail to admire them on a regular basis.

40 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:01 am }

The magical junk drawer was full of wonderful surprises. Lost memories of spaghetti and rice, peeling potatoes and carrots, dicing dinners that warmed the soul and preparing breakfasts that perked the heart. Except, alas, it’s fatal flaw- there was no spatula to flip the french toast 🙁

41 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:06 am }

“I knew who I was when I woke up this morning- but I think I must have changed several times since then.” — Lewis Carrol, from “Alice in Wonderland”

It’s one of my favorite books… there are a few. But this quote is really one of my favorite quotes. I think it’s amazing how much we change as we grow, and how we can wake up as one person, but by the end of the day- through follies and epiphanies, experiences and observances- we can be someone else entirely.

42 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:12 am }

Door 4… I have no idea what was being said! It sounded like “octopuses defying gravity” LOL. I am confused.

43 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:14 am }

I would totally give you all a robot- if I only knew how to make one safely. It’s a shame.

I do not live in the ocean, sadly. Because I am no longer a mermaid. All for the best I suppose.

LOL

44 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:17 am }

I do carry a camera with me, I made sure my phone has a decent one and sometimes I carry my digital camera with me… if I think I’ll find something special that day.

The last picture on my camera… is actually a picture of myself and my little brother. 🙂 And we’re both smiling.

45 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:22 am }

I’ve been keeping journals for years… many are boxed in the attic. I’ve seriously considered this, and on one hand I think it would be fine if someone read them… on the other hand though, I’d rather they die with me- so I’ve asked my husband to burn them when I’m gone. He might sneak and read them first… but I think it’s okay, as long as he burns them afterwards.

46 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:24 am }

I have never argued that point… never actually thought of it! Ummm… in our house, it is the act of doing and not the act of completion that makes it so. Doing the laundry involves gathering, washing, drying, and that’s it. Laundry is done, then we put it away.

47 A.M.S. { 12.01.09 at 11:29 am }

I used to think I was a mermaid, but I’ve never lived in the ocean. I was a swimming pool and bathtub mermaid.

Sweetened or unsweetened tea?

48 Another Dreamer { 12.01.09 at 11:29 am }

Obviously I have rifled through the drawers and invaded the space. In life I wouldn’t so something like that, lol. I would be scared to touch anything, uneasy with being there, and anxious to go home. The feeling of not belonging would grow.

Of course, I also have this anxiety of someone coming to my house and rifling through my stuff. Not that there’s skeletons in my closet, but because this is my safe place. The place where I don’t have to hide anything, where I can proudly display my beliefs and enjoy my quirks. I have a room in my house that not even my husband is allowed to touch- again, not because there’s anything to hide, but because it is sacred. I bear my entire soul in there, it’s my library/art room. He is allowed in the room to see, but not to touch or move things or rifle.

49 A.M.S. { 12.01.09 at 11:41 am }

I consider the laundry done once it comes off the line and makes it into the basket (I try to be good and fold it as I take it down from the clothes line). Managing to get it into drawers and closets is just a bonus.

50 CC { 12.01.09 at 12:20 pm }

I love to bring back purses from the different places we have visited.

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
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