32. Unpacking
The house is always under threat of invasion, just like the self.
“March is such a fickle month. It is the seam between winter and spring—though seam suggests an even hem, and March is more like a rough line of stitches sewn by an unsteady hand […].”
by V.E. Schwab, from “the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” (2020)
01/03/2026, London, UK
My dear,
So much ado about nothing, all of this moving business! Truly, I do not wish to bore you with dull specifics. I made a solemn vow to avoid all boring fare like the plague. But the show I want to put on needs props that are hidden away in boxes, stacked in my study and my parlour. Currently there are no showgirl boas or feather fans to dance with, just the scrape of bare branches against centuries-old glass. A different song altogether. All of the windows in my home are original to the 1830s, that small period of time when the Georgians encased brick walls in metal, before adding a second layer of bricks. Like living in a giant jewellery box, in a way1. And I do intend to decorate accordingly. My home is a treasure trove of collected melancholies, patchouli incense, and carved antiques.
But before I get on with my miscellaneous thoughts and trinkets, I do wish to hear from you first, my dear…
LIMITED TIME SUBMISSION PROMPT: House/Home/Hearth (open until March 31st)
“I would love to go back to the old house / but I never will, I never will, I never will”
lyrics by the Smiths, from their song “Back to the Old House” (1984)
In honour of my recent relocation, I wish to invite you to displace your mind in a new limited time submission prompt! All change breeds art, after all. You are invited to reflect on the house as a state of being, as a coming undone. Explore belonging, comfort, stability, or the absence of these things. What makes a house haunted? What makes a house a home? What have you stuffed into a closet of doom and despair, never to resurface? Theorise on moving; the cycle of rooting and uprooting. How can one embrace the history of a house, the strangeness of new rooms?
The house must be warmed (“housewarming”) in honour of Hestia. A ritual of reconfiguration. But inhabitance itself is also a ritual; it asks the ghosts of your space to embrace you, the intruder. So unravel the tenderest meeting of all; the one of self and place, and send your thoughts over in a metaphorical moving box. Bubble-wrap and tape them, like the fragile things they are, and address them to yours truly. You can find the full submission guide, as always, neatly folded into a cabinet. Everything in its right place.
With that said and done (written and done?), let’s get to packing… And unpacking… And packing again… ꩜ ꩜ ꩜
Goodbye, Blackberry Hill House…
The human spirit is indomitable, it is said. By definition, “Impossible to subdue or defeat”, invincible, unconquerable. My waning belief in this fact was partly restored by the arduous process of moving, belief it or not. There is something odd, even comforting, in how fast one can get used to changes in rhythm, changes in place. Even for one so rooted as me. I am practically nailed down to the floorboards, my dear. The overgrown briars block the light from the window, where the last prince fell and impaled himself2. At night, I tuck myself in under the carpet. I prefer my spaces that way; intertwined, diffused, blurry around the edges.
Love is in the act of learning and the act of un-learning. But make no mistake, a house without furniture is cold. Not just spiritually, symbolically, but physically. Curtains absorb heat. As I stood, dissolving, on my last night in Blackberry Hill House, I took notice of all the odd new sensations of it. The sound echoing through what had been my home for almost four years. Empty corners. Without frames I saw stains on the walls, touches lingering, grey swipes on off-white paint, sections where the sun has bleached the imprint of things no longer there; a literal lingering, a haunting, an after-image.
I thought of the house in terms of visitors; lingering ghostly presence. The many friends who have slept on my couch, the one friend who bled on it. My own blood, drawn out by salt and cold water. Visitors welcome and un-welcome. Mice, big spiders, an everlasting fear of moths. The house is always under threat of invasion, just like the self. It is ego and id, it performs multiple roles. To defend against those who wish to devour it is an everlasting pursuit. Keeping a house is more than equipping a chatelaine of inhabitance, my dear. It is to guard against ruin, it is to say, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!3”.
Yet nothing of the kingdom remains now. From the water stain scrubbed off the ceiling to the hole filled in the wall— all the ways my two hands have transformed this home, some taken with me and some left behind. For better or for worse. Lingering ghostly presence. Moving is the ego-death, requiring psychoanalysis to unpack. Simultaneously rearranging feelings and furniture. Ritualistically, compulsively laying everything out for the eye to feast on. New appreciations for the old and known alike.
Time blends in the house that was and stretches in the house that will be. And I have my traditions, my dear. Of course I do. I am never far removed from a ritual or two. First of all, the night of moving I must sleep in the kitchen— this is an instinct born of desire, regret, lack. I fear not having used a space to its full potential. And I want to leave my mark on it, scribbling initials under sinks, hidden away in cabinets. Lingering ghostly presence. I will not fill the drill holes. Second strike. The old house is a world I can never return to now the wind has carried me to distant rooms. A new set of chambers to dote on, all my own.
Blackberry Hill House is dead! Long live Thornhill House! ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Until my next letter,
With love (and violence),
x Sabrina Angelina, the White Lily Society 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯
Currently reading: “Glamour: Women, History, Feminism” (2010) by Carol Dyhouse // Most recent read: “Strange Antics: a History of Seduction” (2020) by Clement Knox
White Lily Society links // Sabrina Angelina links
This is the end of the special programming, my dear! Fret not, for my next letter will be a return to form, and a long-awaited, much-requested look at seduction… Darling, trust me when I say you’ll want to be around for a taste of it. Come, join us. Become a martyr of deliciousness!
📼 Song of the (past) month: You Can Have It All - Florence and the Machine
Or, alternatively, one of those Victorian metal coffins meant to deter grave robbers… It’s all about perspective, I suppose, my dear.
Reference to the Grimm version of “Sleeping Beauty”… You can brush up on your fairytale knowledge in Letter 20.
Quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” (1818).
I cannot put into words how beautifully you described this sentiment. Love