Short Talk on Housing

For days these words have been resting on my tongue, slowly dissolving.
The lines have begun to settle into my hips. 

Here is one thing you can do if you
have no house. Wear several hats -
maybe three, four. In the event of rain
or snow, remove the one(s) that get(s)
wet. Secondly, to be a householder is a
matter of rituals. Rituals function
chiefly to differentiate horizontal from
vertical. To begin the day in your house
is to ‘get up’. At night you will ‘lie
down’. When old Tio Pedro comes
over for tea you will ‘speak up’, for
these days his hearing is ‘on the
decline’. If his wife is with him you will
be sure to have ‘cleaned up’ the
kitchen and parlour so as not to ‘fall’ in
her opinion. Watching the two of
them, as they sit side by side on the
couch smoking one cigarette, you feel
your “heart lift’. These patterns of up
and down can be imitated, outside the
house, in vertical and horizontal
designs upon the clothing. The lines
are not hard to make. Hats do not
need to be so decorated for they will
’pile up’ on your head, in and of them-
selves, qua hats, if you have understood
my original instruction.
— "Short Talk on Housing" by Anne Carson

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