The Loft

When I was little, hard to tell when (it is a vague memory and maybe it did not really happen like this but this is the way I remember it).  It did happen, really.

Rather than guess at an age I will just say that I was small enough for my older by 11 years sister, Mardell, lifted me up to a closest shelf. I must have been small enough for her to lift and the closest shelf, if it was a closet, was not that high.  Just above her face level.  But that is the way I remember it.  On a shelf up high.  It felt that way.

It also felt good.  A small space.  Up where I had a view, maybe my first view,  from a vantage point of height.  A safe place that somehow I felt was my own.  A feeling of security.  I liked it.

I have always liked lofts in a house.  My house had two lofts on the third story level.  I closed off one that was open to the bedroom below but made a doorway to it from the third story loft on the other side of the wall.  That loft is reachable by a ladder.

8 years ago we added a new master bedroom on the main floor and converted a downstairs bedroom to a bathroom and small walk in closet.  The converted bedroom prior to the remodel had a shed roof/ceiling.  The vertical wall at one end under which would be the walk-in closet was two stories high.  I had an 8 foot high ceiling put in over the walk-in closet creating an upper 12x8 foot space and a pull down folding ladder to access it.  My space.  A special place like a loft.  A refuge filled with my most personal things and memories.

Yesterday I finished a ladder to another loft in a shop at my sisters house.  I made the loft and the stairs.  The stairs are hinged so they can be pulled up to the loft level.  I am living in a 13 ft trailer below and inside the shop.  An 8X12 foot loft where I can store my things.  Things that I had moved from my house in town that now await below in the shop for sorting and Keep/Dispose decisions.  The keepers will go up into the loft.  Mostly old things.  Keepsakes.  Family things.  Videos and pictures.  Things that have value associated with memories of people, places, accomplishments.  Things from a lifetime that require further attention to give them meaning to say something about me when I am no longer here to say it myself.

Things that I keep in the shop below are all things that could be disposed of when I am gone.

How much will finally remain up in the loft at the end of that project?

Not very much but important to me and anyone that may ever find it to be important to them for some reason.  Who knows?


The last of my presence remaining in a loft I created.

I like lofts.