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If opinions on any of these subjects had been chalked on the pavement, nobody would have stooped to read them. The nonchalance of the hurrying feet would have rubbed them out in half an hour.
Virginia Woolf
Let’s say you receive a tip off, someone, like the national intelligence agency, or even your pesky aunty Poppy, had successfully applied to the courts for a warrant, authorising them to search your hovel/room/home. What would you hide?
After divesting of the forgotten perlemoen and its less legal narcotic cousins there are the little inanities that make up our lives, the seemingly insignificant things we pack our lives into that we’d protect from the prying eyes of the world, simply because they are our own. Some people guard their phones with the fierceness of a weaver bird tearing down a rejected nest, perhaps because they have something to hide but perhaps too, they have more to protect. There’s something so humiliating, dehumanising in fact, in coercing another to bare all.
I’d hide:
My journals: As evidence to past misdeeds they are about as good as a perlemoen stash and I’d also like to preserve some semblance of the well-formed opinion the world has of me.
There’s that gift, its ambiguity confused me so I keep it in its original gift packaging on one of my book shelves. I’ve only ever peeked at it once and I wouldn’t want to explain how it got there.
I’ll tell you what I’d hide, I’d tell you where I hid it, but I wouldn’t let you get to it because there’s too much in there that’s just mine.
What would you hide? Or are you an open-book, unperturbed about the world roaming about? You know they say a lot of open minds should be closed for repairs, so I’d venture, a few open books need a trip to the bindery. What would you hide?
9 replies on “>A room of one’s own”
>I cant think of anything i would hide. This is tough
>At first I thought, ‘oh, this is easy!’ – how wrong was I..
I’m finding it difficult to find something I’d hide.. Does that mean I don’t have memories worth hiding from prying eyes? Or maybe that I’m a public person who does not mind? But, neither are true..
And yet, I have nothing to hide!
>I think I would hide my anger and my fear. They’re not physically manifested in ways other than the 0.22 bullets I’ve kept from my first shooting trip. But i think thats coz I hide them so well…
>I’d say my journals as well, except that I don’t keep a proper, fully documented account of my life anymore. I don’t mind people reading my notebooks,they’d have to be formidable cryptographers to start with:)
yay for google chrome incognito browsing:)
>hmm.. hiding places? now that would be telling… my HDD is an interesting hiding place. and the web. lol. ok but seriously…
i have one of those ambiguous gifts. its not hidden; but the note that accompanies it has raised a few eyebrows of those who dare to let their eyes scan over it. enough not to ask questions; thankfully.
its not like i have any answers.
*shrugs*
>I remember when I was a teenager, I’d find creative places to hide all kinds of stuff from my parents and more importantly my bossy older sibling. Silly things like a CD from a boy and evidence that I had been the movies rather than studying like I was supposed to. Now it feels like it’s pretty much an open book. Kinda sad that I have nothing worth hiding…
>Nooj described this post the best 🙂 Great post.
I had to think about what I’d hide and I didn’t really come up with much. There is my box, that box that started when I might have been 12 and even at 26 special memories go into. It can reveal all my secrets and yet I don’t think I’d hide it. It’s what has contributed to me being me.
>your post is like a delicately baked souffle
i am still thinking
i am desperate for something to hide
after all, wanting to hide something means i have treasured something
there must be something i want to hide….
>indeed, we hide, or rather protect what is most precious to us, just like the oyster hides its pearl, no because it is sinister, but because it so breathtakingly beautiful, and even hijab protects our femininity by hiding our femininity from prying eyes.
I would hide –
my shoe and hijab collections, simply because they are both prized and shameful at once.
my laptop, which much like ur journals holds memories, photos, notes and the like
and i guess it would all depend on who’s looking, from some id hide my lingerie draw, others my fridge…
great post