To read an excerpt from the book, please click on the following link:

ashaveilbook.blogspot.com

An excerpt from The Pleasure Palace, my romantic comedy, can be found here:



Thursday, May 07, 2015

House

After a great dance class last night, I drove to the street where Asha lived during the last months of her life; I had looked up the house on Google Maps.  The side street has a pretty awful road, gravel and with a need to fill in the demarcation between it  and the main road.  There are palm trees farther on the road, which I find so weird up  here in the mountains.   It's a fairly wide road with a big turnout at the end.  When the weather lightens up (it has been raining, very welcome right now), I am going to get my water bottle, dress in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and my walking shoes, and walk down the road, pretending I am a nice lady of a certain age, just taking a walk to get into shape.  That way I can get a closer look at the house.

I did get to see what I am pretty sure is the house--a small place, but very pretty, and one I would be happy to live in myself.  I wonder how Asha got a room in this house, if someone offered it to her, or if it was found by the resource center which helped her (in those organizations, there is usually a list of people willing to take in pregnant mothers)--whatever way she landed there, it seemed a nice little place.  I have no idea at all how she felt about the people who lived with her there, except something in the court records which stated that she was eager to move away from her roommates and get her own place/: in such a tiny place, there couldn't have been many roommates.  It's far too small and in too quiet of a neighborhood to be a "party house" and I doubt a pregnant woman, with all the nesting urges going on, would like to live in a house with that kind of atmosphere.  Still, who wouldn't want their own place to live, especially with a baby on the way?

The area has spaces between each house which gives it an open feel, maybe even vulnerable in some way.  Still, I can see that such a place would provide a sense of safety: the road is not marked with a street sign and there are houses all around.

It is strange to get a glimpse of a person's life in this way.  When you try to write about a person you did not know well who is gone, it sometimes is a matter of filling in the outline of that person until they really stand before you, metaphorically.  Looking at the small, cozy house where Asha lived out the last of her days, I get a sense that some part of her life might have felt a little safe for her at that time, and I am glad.  I could be wrong, but I find myself hoping that happened for her.

No comments: