walls are for touching   

   For many of us, walls define the intimate living space: they shelter, support, partition, enclose, protect, isolate. Once we have settled in a place, we take our walls for granted: in the course of time, their structure and texture, their angles and remote corners tend to go unnoticed. They may even virtually disappear as we surround ourselves with everything we need… or don't.

   Shaped and draped around our lives, as it were, walls are witness to our joys and pains, to our wildest dreams, our secret plans, our naked appearances. Walls are said to have ears; could it be that they have eyes and maybe a soul as well? A life of their own?

   When we move out to live in another place, when we have gathered and packed our belongings and emptied every single room and cubicle, can we really say we leave nothing behind?

   Walls of empty horse stalls inevitably smell of hay and straw, of mice and dusty spider webs, of stale water. When you are gone, will your walls smell of señoritas, of cooked food, of coffee, chocolate and Chilean merlot? Or none of these? Just empty rooms? Yes, at first sight. But then stretch out your hands, spread your fingers and let them run over these surfaces which, however familiar, you may never have consciously touched. Then look at your fingertips and see what is still there: in thin dusty layers, 'molecules' from the past months or years of your life.

Traces of your presence will fade in the course of time, but they may never disappear completely.

   Walls are for touching.

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