The Floor That Creaks

You look at the room in the house that seems so perfect. It is an older home, but it has the charm and character and the ambiance that keeps calling you back to it. But then there is that floor. You notice every time you visit the home the floor in that big beautiful room – the one with all the windows – creaks. And you wonder if that room could ever been the room you imagine.

The room is on the second floor of that house. It is a corner room and as such it has three windows and three views. Each view is different; each view is beautiful and panoramic. One window faces the small lake – the one rimmed with trees. One window faces the river, the meandering serpentine river that you imagine flows past many sleepy little towns. The one you imagine young boys splashing in and the one you imagine yourself on the grassy banks of, dozing, reading and daydreaming. The other window faces a flat and grassy meadow that stretches as far as you can see.

And on the wall without windows, the room has a fireplace with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side. The fireplace is brick and the bookshelves are made of dark, rich wood.

The room is large – big enough for a grand piano, a couch, a daybed, two comfortable chairs, a computer desk, a large LCD TV – you imagine that room as the room that you and she would spend the most time in – reading, talking, listening, looking, thinking, reading, napping.

You imagine this room to be the room in which you will spend a great deal of your life but the floor creaks and you are concerned that it can’t support the weight of all you could put into it – of all you’d want to put into it.

You want that house and you want that room but you don’t know if that floor that creaks can stand the strain of all you would put into it – the piano, thousands of books, the sofa, the chairs and the dreams.

So you wonder if there is a way to know if the floor can stand the strain without actually putting the piano and the books and the furniture, and your dreams into it, because you really want that house. It’s the perfect house with the perfect room – but lately every time you visit it, and you visit it often, the floor creaks worse. Sometimes it creaks so badly when you get into the middle of it, you’re afraid you’re going to fall right through it and be badly hurt when you fall to the floor below.

You think you might even die if that floor gave way.

The owner of the house is sometimes helpful and spreads blueprints on the table and shows you the old plans and the skeleton that holds the skin and the rooms and the heart of the house together. It has held that creaky floor up for years but right now the room is empty except for the the old memories it holds.

You wonder if you buttressed the floor with support beams or with cross-beams if you could be sure then that the floor would be strong enough to hold everything you want to put into it – the furniture, the books, the piano, the dreams.

You lie awake at night and think about that room – you have imagined yourself in that room looking out of those windows, dreaming and pondering and doing. You have imagined a thousand times the snow falling on that frozen lake or skaters on the mirror-ice surface of the river – the warmth of the fireplace creating a comforting glowing warmth as you watch the snow fall softly to the ground.

And you realize, suddenly, that all your dreams are much heavier than the things you want to put into that room – are so much heavier than the grand piano or the long soft couch or those chairs or all those books. And the floor’s creaking has gotten much worse lately so now you’re almost afraid to walk across it.

You wear your softest socks and you tip-toe across it but still it creaks.

You can’t just turn your back on that house or that room – you want that house and that room to hold all of your dreams. If only there was a way to strengthen the floor without ruining the rest of the house – you think – then that room could hold all the dreams you could ever dare to dream – even the heaviest ones. And if that room could hold your dreams then it could surely hold the other things you love – the books, friends, the piano, the furniture. But dreams are heavy things.

You know it would be perfect.

You know you can’t just turn your back now and walk away. You can’t abandoned that house or that room. You know if you do, the rest of your life will be spent in a in a dingy single-room with a bare sixty-watt light bulb dangling just above your head. One that sways with your tossing and turning and even your breathing. One that would cast sharp and harsh shadows everywhere. Each one of them reminding you of what might have been and what now will never be. And you know if you goin there you’ll never come out because there’s nothing else and nowhere else to go. Your dreams will die because you have nowhere to keep them all. The shadows will swallow you dreams like a dark stormy sky swallows the light and the warmth of the sun.

You listen to the relentless wind and you hear your relentless yearning not to give in and not to give up. That floor in the house of your dreams creaks and sometimes terrifies you and scares you but you know you must find a way to strengthen it or condemn yourself to a life in a single room – a room which cannot hold the weight of even one single dream; a room you built from the shadows of dreams you once dared to dream. And then every breath you take, every move you make, every moment of every night those shadows would dance in that room of sadness and it would remind you of what might have been and of what now can never be. Your dreams would be gone and all you would have left would be the shadows of things you once dreamed and now which can never be.

You don’t want to kill your dreams. So you make the decision. You will find a way to buttress that floor so it can hold as many dreams as you could ever dare to dream – and as many things as you could ever want to put in it.

All you need to do now if figure out how to fix that floor that creaks.

Or have faith that the floor will withstand the weight of your dreams no matter how badly it creaks.

You start to think maybe you shouldn’t be so afraid. Maybe you should dream the most impossible dreams and see if that room can hold them all.