Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

in Gilpin Street, just around the corner and in exactly
the same type of house as the ashram at Franklin Street
where I used to live.
The ashram was a big, detached house, about a hundred
years old with lots of wood in and out and a large porch
next to the front door. The Divine Light Mission rented
around ten or so of such houses in Denver. About twenty
five people shared the house on Franklin Street and inside
and out it was a bare and severe place, with a tiled
garden that for a seeker of enlightenment was obviously
out of bounds.
Now we stay just around the corner at John Walters’, a
retired pharmaceutical researcher. He decorated his B&B
inside and out with flowers, copper bars, draped fabrics,
pleated borders and ornate furniture. We have the Rose
Room, a room like a stuffed animal with a high wooden
bed to climb up on to and sink in. “It works for you huh”,
John giggles when he sees our faces and hears our cries.
He’s sixty now and was thirty when he bought the house,
‘a complete mess’. Piece by piece he hammered and painted
everything whole again and bought European antiques
by the container, unseen. That’s where the gold-plated
lion paw is from that functions as support for a piece of
heavy, red velvet in our Rose Room. Just like the woman
made of stone that empties her amphora in the pond with
goldfish. And the metal rocking couch with huge flowery
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