my UP STICKS…

My cozy comfort bed always made sure that the writer in me gets relaxed to its very best extend. It’s a new day as i always tell myself. Today i have a new mission to accomplish. I am moving out of this house and from this place. I have got a new assignment and i will be working on my next book. I have been grounded to these four walls for the past five years from the first week i came to this city. I don’t hold any grudge or sadness to this city, in fact i am in love with this sleepless city. Whenever i felt i am done with the rush and noise, i withdrew from here to unknown destinations for few days. After attaining a good amount of relief, i plunge back to the city and its routine.

Being part of this city, it kept me always busy with travel, job, friends, writing, discussions, parties etc. This city helped me to be an independent and self sustained writer. I owe for that. I could find more opportunities and experiences while being exposed to numerous faces: both fake and real ones. In the midst of chit chats i heard about this place and a house isolated from the city. The narrator was good in making me compelled for thinking about this shifting. This discussion happened last year over a party and i happened to visit this place once. It wasn’t occupied and it seemed to be an exotic place since the house seemed old and located in the midst of trees. It was undisturbed by the urbanization, a beautiful house like ones usually mentioned in fairy tales and books. It was far from the city yet the house was furnished with the basic needs. The house was owned by the narrator who became my good friend ever since the day we met at the party and hence found to be interested in giving the house on rent. It was their ancestral property and all the heirs stayed abroad. He felt happy to give me the keys after urgent renovations & repair. My friend kept the house intact with minimal change to its original structure since he knew that i am a die hard lover of antique. He expressed his sincere gratitude in handing over the house to me since he will be moving abroad for few years and he can be at peace since this house will be in safe hands 🙂

I quickly had my shower and got ready for the travel. Its time for me to say goodbye to this apartment. Now these wall and rooms seem nude after everything being shifted to my new place. It will be more like my own home than a rented house. I walked out with grateful heart for the apartment. I was excited about my new nest. Preparations of shifting started few weeks back. The flexibility of my job made it easier for the coming days ahead too. I had to come once in a while to office and could do my assignments from home. Most of luggage, books, house hold stuffs were already shifted and arranged by the assistants for me. My maid, Tara and my assistant, Luke made sure that the house will be ready to be occupied by the time  i get back after my official trip from abroad. I reached there after 2 hours of drive.

I arrived at my new house in the afternoon. Tara and Luke welcomed me to my new home. Most excited was Earl, my dog to see me 🙂 I was mesmerized to see the transformation of those rusty walls and floors. It was a two storied house with major part made of rock and glass. The unknown architect made sure that lot of natural light entered the house from all sides since trees surrounded the area. The main entrance into the house faced a glass paneled wall with fireplace. The flooring was mostly unpolished granite stones, wood and Italian paves. It had minimal furniture since i am not expecting much guests here. I found myself lucky to have the old library of the house was opened for me. It had walls wood sheet racked with  books collected around the globe. The library also had a door opening to the garden and even the floor was wooden. It made it easy to roam around the books untiringly for several hours. The books were beautifully cataloged…Only one thing was banging in my thoughts, I need to hunt this library as soon as possible. I felt an immense pleasure seeing those books to be staying with me from now own under one roof 🙂

Almost all the rooms had its own private balcony or spaces opening to the outside garden. That was a big blessing for me. Beneath the wooden stairs Luke had made space for Earl. I decided to make the first floor my roaming territory with plenty of space of bedroom, a private writing space, long balcony with a wooden swing at one end, hanging plant pots. I could enjoy my early morning with coffee from this balcony. My writing room had large open windows which didn’t had any iron bars restricting my vision to the lush greenery 🙂 It had one big yet simple table with chair. The table was arranged near the wall facing the windows which gave me good outer view. My computer and accessories were kept at one end corner of the table. Few of my journals and stationery were neatly arranged over the table. I felt happy that Tara and Luke could arrange it well according to my taste 🙂 They had always made me live at ease since they are well understood about the needs of my profession.

At the room next to my writing room, they had unpacked and piled up my books. I didn’t wanted them to be mixed with the books of the owner and i chose to have a separate room. The books weren’t arranged as i had instructed Tara to wait until i get back.This room too had an adjacent balcony which was small yet decorated with live creepers and potted plants. The green branches of a long bottle-brush tree were titled to the balcony side and beneath the tree a sitting arrangement was made. The genie of home decorator had resurrected in Tara from the day when she came with me to visit this place. She made the place beneath the tree more beautiful by hanging some glass candles. I always appreciated the girl for her brilliant home decor ideas. 

The ground floor had a spacious old kitchen yet renovated with the style of 90’s and walled glass panel. The floor was stone paved. Now Tara’s magic and Luke’s support made it a full fledged normal kitchen. The kitchen door opened into a long indoor vegetable/herbal garden. It had a tea table arranged at the adjacent open space. As a whole, the house wasn’t painted and was more or less grayish tinted with just the cement plastering.

 I just had a quick glance over the house and retrieved to my bedroom for rest of the day. I was tired mentally with the shifting, travel and making schedules for my new assignments. I needed some personal time too, to get adapted to this new environment. The house had a calm and peaceful ambiance. It seemed like i am uprooted all of a sudden from the noisy city to a silent forest. It will take me some time to get adjusted and familiarized with the indoor -outdoor surroundings. I felt blank in an instance. I laid over the bed watching the new ceiling and fell into deep sleep. I woke up later for dinner when Tara came upstairs. Over the dinner time i could find that both Tara and Luke are happy with my new choice. Both were on serious discussions over what all works are pending and what all things are to be bought. We decided to go on a walk to see surroundings especially the glass house next to the river. All of us went back to our rooms soon after dinner.   

The house owner also had a glass house next to the river which was at walk able distance from the house. He had also made arrangements for my free access to it. It was just a room made of glass held with metal frames right next to a small river. There was a small wooden swing held near to the water. It was so beautiful and serene place that i felt to be living in heaven. The spring weather had made the forest look beautiful. The day times had the orchestra of chirping birds and sparrows while nights had the rock bands of cicadas. The nights were chill and early mornings were fog & mist filled. Dew drops ornate every inches of the trees and plants outside the house. Button mushrooms were found in plenty near the old woods. We might have to use the fireplace at winter.  We had few visitors too among the neighboring woods. I found them on my way to glass house.

Over the next few days all three of us were busy with settling down. Tara and Luke made the final changes in the indoor arrangements. Luke helped me with cataloging my books and finally we could arrange them. I had to keep up with the pending assignments at the office as it piled up due to my trip. Slowly everything seemed to be placed in order. Luke was relieved for two weeks holidays. He made necessary arrangements before he left. Now Tara, Earl and myself were left in our home. My mind was relaxed and i thought of writing. I donated my time for reading  and journaling. I had so much pending memories to be entered into my journal. 

I started spending time in my writing room. The room, the ambiance and the exterior view were all good. Earl made sure that i wasn’t missing him much. He paid me frequent visit and didn’t complain much over not pampering him. Like Tara, he might be well acclimatized to my writing inertia.  I walked across the room thinking about what should be my next book on. I visited my little book collection several times. I couldn’t find anything interesting to read other than the pending books which i had left midway due to work or travel. I went across several of my unfinished manuscripts. Most of them had been started with the instantaneous spark of ideas, incidents or conversations. Nothing of it seemed to be giving me the call to be written at that moment. I started scribbling many titles and even started writing sentences without any title of intentions. But most of the times it just mirrored my mental status of disappointment. It just seemed to be started from no where and going to nowhere. Tara had a tough time with me. Every morning she found a mess in my writing room. Papers reveled upon the floor, ink spilled over the table, books randomly over placed etc. I didn’t write stories on the lap until i do an initial satisfactory write up over the story plot. Once the plot is done, then i start developing them on the computer. I am struggling over just summarizing a genuine new story. I am devoid of the enthusiasm and excitement over any of the topics i came across my mind over the past few days and nights. Oh my God!, i am blank what am i gonna write. How and what characters will i be giving birth to in my story?  I can’t let my spirit sink in depression!

It’s been one week after i shifted to this home. All these days everything went peaceful except my writing. Tara consoled me, somehow she felt that i am tensed and desperate over my new assignment. After breakfast i was walking back to my room, while i saw Earl going into the home library. The library is kept closed and Tara opens it only at the time of routine cleaning. I walked in and found Tara finishing the cleaning. Earl came wagging his tail next to me. I had almost forgotten about the books kept here since i was preoccupied with many other works. The sunlight kept the room bright. Tara had done a great task to get the whole room devoid of dust and fungus.  

I went next to the wooden racks arranged neatly with books. I started from one corner of the shelf. I could find several books on world classics. Literature from the Victorian age (drama, poetry and prose), travelogues, expeditions, children’s literature, historical books on civil wars, epic poetry such Beowulf, Battle of Maldon, books on medieval culture, religion and politics. The translated copies of Latin, Norman-French, German and Roman works, articles on Early Modern English, Early Modern Britain, English Renaissance, Elizabethan literature, and English Renaissance theatre. That day i felt like i found a lost treasure. I didn’t realize how time went until Tara came to remind me of my lunch. Earl was happily cuddling next to my leg when i was in between the books on the wooden floor. Tara could make out my excitement right from my face. 

After lunch i rushed back to the library and was fully immersed into the books. I was tired and saturated after seeing so many books. Most of them were just known to me by names and very few i had read among them. I started keeping them back and all of a sudden a small rack caught my attention. I felt strange to find some distinct books among the entire book collection in that library. That shelf had peculiar hard bound books. They were all wooden bound books and seemed to be too old on first impression. I couldn’t find any names imprinted over the hard wooden binds. I removed all of them to the adjacent table for closer study.

On the back side of the emptied shelf i found i found two books wrapped with lace and two iron cast keys which seemed little rusted. Among all those wooden books,  this two looked to be distinct in size and texture compared to the other ones. They looked like some kind of person journals, written italics with black ink, all the papers started worn out and becoming brownish from the edges. There wasn’t any name on the first page. I found rest of the wooden books having family records and accounts of the family generations. I kept them aside, right now i was curious these two journals. Already questions started frothing inside my mind regarding their origin. Someone inside me whispered that this is it! Here you have your new subject. I thought i was going to have lazy days ahead, meditating and digging over the long lost memories to get a thread on which i could work. Waiting for that one spark over which i could weave my new story. This was my concept until i came across that old dusty moth-eaten books.  I never knew that the ancient books on my hand are going to rewrite my destiny forever…