A room of one's own: A love letter to my bedroom
I am a firm believer that you don't know someone until you have seen their space. I am also a firm believer that money does not dictate how accurate self expression can be for any individual.
I remember for a few years of my life my “bedroom” was a cubby in a small monohull sailboat docked in a marina. There was only space for a cot, but I made it my own. I collected feathers and seashells and placed them anywhere I found a stable ledge. That Christmas we even brought in a tiny tree and decorated it with fishing bobbers. Even when I was homeless, I found a way to curate my own bubble. I would light my incense in my tent and set my pillowpet in the corner so I could feel at home. These practices gave me peace.
Image Courtesy: Selah Hassel
Image Courtesy: Selah Hassel
As I got older, these collections, of course, grew. I got a job and started thrifting for artwork and posters. Since I was a little girl, making a space for my mind to exist where I could see it has been my favorite pastime. Maybe it is because my “space” was never an exact place, but a quality I took everywhere I went. I kept reinventing my life every time I moved into a new room. Now, when I am people watching, my mind often thinks, I wonder what their space looks like?
If you were to look into my room you would see rusted horseshoes hanging on the walls, a framed photo of Laura Palmer, flowers hanging upside down to keep their shape, some in vases too. Year long. Some things change with the seasons, like my bathing suit hanging on a nail that sticks out, and other things haven’t moved in four years. If you were to look into my room you would see my doll Margot in a white Victorian dress. You can see all the titles to my favorite books and the Tibetan prayer flags draped across my television screen.
If you were sitting right where I am every time I go to sleep and wake up, you would see a clipping from an article that was passed down to me some time ago, titled “How Can You Buy or Sell The Earth?” It’s a question I often wonder about too. A photograph sits right in the middle, capturing an elderly man staring straight forward in his chair. Under him reads:
“Speech by Chief Seattle 1854”
“So, we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors…”
His speech always makes me think about how easy it is to treat things like they don’t matter. To move through spaces without really noticing them. But he’s asking for the opposite of that, and rather, that we should be paying more attention. To remember that everything has been here longer than you have, and will probably be here after you’re gone.
I look at that clipping a lot. It makes me think about how nothing in my room is really just a piece of discarded objects or broken things. Everything has been somewhere before it got to me. Everything holds something. Maybe that’s why I keep it all so close. There are mirrors all around me.
When Virginia Woolf wrote, “every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of their life, every quality of their mind is written large in their works,” I think about how that might be true for rooms too. Especially in the way a space slowly fills up with a sense of “you” over time, even if on accident.
My room does that for me, and not always in a way that makes sense to anyone else. But it holds what I’ve been through, what I’ve picked up, what I’ve decided to keep. It’s not about having much. It’s just about having a place to put things down.
Strike Out,
Selah Hassel
Saint Augustine
Editor: Kaya O’Rourke
Selah Hassel is an English Literature major and Creative writing minor at Flagler College. She is fascinated by language, perception, and the tension between the analytical and the imaginative. Her writing expression explores identity, cultural memory, and the textures of lived experience. She loves to travel, learn new things, and connect with people along the way. You can find and follow her on Instagram @selah.eve, and occasionally on Substack @selaheve.substack.
