When I was a girl, reading about boarding houses in books like Little Women and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter made me curious. What would it be like to live in a house with people thrown together in part by chance, in part by circumstance? Had romantic appeal.

Last week I woke up and realized, hey! Got a room of my own in a nice big house with people of different histories, personalities and interests renting rooms for varied periods of time.

I’m living in a boarding house.

I have heard the music of Rufus Wainwright, tasted some sort of soy-based amino-acid stuff, tasted a good 2 dollar wine and some I guess pricey vodka, been invited to a Latino film festival that starts here in November, seen a short homemade art video, learned of someone’s work history in Ireland. And we’re a sensitive group--seem aware of boundaries, needs for space, needs for conversation, needs for keeping clean the common areas, needs for honoring the wishes of Ms. Landlady. (She’d laugh at that title.) Nobody knows you at first--share as much or as little of yourself as you like. You wander downstairs and someone’s carving a pumpkin, someone else is washing a paint roller while talking to the cat.

Maybe it’s a honeymoon period, maybe not. And there are awkward dances. But people are social animals. At least for the short run, it beats living alone. And hey, it’s an unforeseen arrival of something wished for. Something imperfect and beautiful.