"It was the sweetest little room in the world, with a soft, comfortable bed that had sheets of green silk and a green velvet counterpane. There was a tiny fountain in the middle of the room, that shot a spray of green perfume into the air, to fall back into a beautifully carved green marble basin. Beautiful green flowers stood in the windows, and there was a shelf with a row of green little books. When Dorothy had time to open these books she found them full of queer green pictures that made her laugh, they were so funny."

If you look at Denslow's illustration of this scene, from Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz, there's an overstuffed chair, a high, arched, stained glass window, and the flowers look like orchids. It reminds me in a way of the attic from Burnett's A Little Princess, but Baum's is somehow a much more American and fantastic vision of the ideal girl's room.

When I am feeling flustered, as though I am nothing but constant static and chatter, I lie down on my bed. My room is bright, and when I close my eyes everything is orange and hot. The background noise is never completely silent, but when I am in my room it is more quiet than usual.

I can be very alone here in my room. I draw the shades at night and clean up the mess of the day. I carefully put things back where they belong. It's a very exacting process: I stack up all my books next to my bed, I fold and sort the clothes I've strewn about, I rearrange my plants, I pick through the paper I've accumulated. Everything has to be very neat.

Funny books sit on my little shelf. Flowers grow tall in my window. Ray Bradbury said something very beautiful about Oz, as a place to go at night after you salve and bind up your wounds from the world. I need to do this every night. I go to Dorothy's room and sit in her overstuffed chair (my room, sweet as it is, lacks a good chair) and inhale the perfume from her fountain.

I think about all the people whose wounds could use a sort of salve, but it's probably going to make me start crying. I'll sing a few more sad songs and then go to sleep, in my little, queer, but not very green room.

2001-09-27, All in all, I love you now.

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