You know, I was home this weekend, and I was sitting in my mum's room snuggling with her and I started to look at their room. I mean really look at it. You know how if you live in a place for a long time you don't even see the rooms anymore? You know what's in there and where everything is but you don't really SEE the things. I looked around and thought about how much the room had changed since we first moved in, new pictures stuck to the mirror, new paintings on the walls, and new books on the shelves.
But the one thing that hasn't really changed is my mum's Dresser top. I loved to root through it when I was a kid because you never knew what on earth she had on there. Everybody's got some version of it, a junkdrawer, a shoebox or a jewelrybox that holds all the odds and ends from life that you just can't bring yourself to get rid of. My mum's added to it over the years, but it's still there, a constant little mess that's been a puzzle since childhood. And then I went back to my own room and I realized that I'd made my own little collection and hadn't even realised it.
Old family jewelry and little scented candels that seems fresh whenever you open the box. Faded photo's, class rings and old buttons with slogans that haven't been shouted in a decade. Bits of ribbon and crystal and little old toys and things left over from childhood. Dried flowers from prom and graduation with the odd trinkets and gadgets that we picked up in the Emirates whenever we went to the junk shop. A mini persian rug no bigger than your hand lining the bottom with river rocks and bits of seashells and coral from oceans and lakes all over the world. Coins from countries that no longer exist or never did exist, an old bit of Origami that a boy gave me when I was 7 and I could never bring myself to throw away. Pins and badges from nearly 15 years of guides. Marbles and stones, hematite and tigerseye and bloodstone, mixed in with worthless bits of quartz and fossils. Birthstone rings that my grandmother gave me as a child that haven't fit for a decade, old rings of my grandfathers that never fit me in the first place. A bit of clan tartan and dried heather from my first trip to scotland and a rosary from Notre Dame from my frist trip to France.
I love to dig through the chest because though everything in it would be worthless to anyone else, they call up all kind of memories and images and scents from my life that I had almost forgotten. Smiling faces and days spent outside hunting down interesting stones and fossils. Trinkets from trips when the whole family travelled together and we were small enough to still want to cuddle with mum and dad at night. Gifts from people long gone and from those still here. Images of countrysides an ocean away, but I can still remember the chill of the wind and the scent of flowers and the sea.
Sorry, spring (or lack thereof) has me feeling all nostalgic. But I'd be interested to see what other people keep in their own junk drawers and shoeboxes.
Meru at 11:43 PM