Today's Keyboard Smash
Mar. 27th, 2021 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaksWe have a little porch/landing type thing we built off our backdoor, and it recently started collapsing due to a few failing timbers. We had a bunch of plastic totes underneath it, basically shoved under there for safekeeping ages ago, and they all had to be pulled out of the way when we shored up the porch.
Finally went through them today. One was nothing but shoes that didn't fit me all that well when they were new and which now were irrevocably taken over by spider nests. *shudder* A couple had clothing, towels, and other miscellaneous cloth items, more or less unharmed. Some of the totes had started cracking, though, and had let water in at some point. One of the hurricane lamps is badly rusted now, but perhaps not unsalvageable. There's a little wooden trinket box I've had since I was very young which has now come unglued, rusted, and mildewed away. I still think I can put it back together and refinish it, though, and I rather want to try. I also found the little cloth baby book--numbers and letters and animals--that I've remained weirdly attached to all my life (it's now safely in my bedroom).
If it seems odd that nice things and sentimental things were chucked under the porch all willy-nilly, uh...you haven't heard the worst of it yet. I. I own some really nice things? I know, not so you can tell most of the time, since I like to keep my space arranged around an aesthetic somewhere between "Howl's bedroom" and "bowerbird courtship structure." And it's not that I don't remember owning these things. I just haven't thought about them in a while*.
I now have an etched glass decanter and matching water goblets arranged on the DVD shelving in the living room. Right next to the crackle-finish bud vase in the form of a bamboo double helix, which was in the same tote. (Thank goodness I understood the concept of boxes within boxes and using ALL the bubble wrap.) They're stunningly lovely to look at. I even had my fizzy water with lunch in one of the goblets.
I want to make a point of using these things. I have room for them (sort of, barely, if I'm careful and creative) in the house. At the old place, they had to all stay in boxes because there just wasn't anywhere safe or, you know, flat available to display them. But I own nice things, and I'm increasingly hedonistic as the years go by. I want to enjoy pretty things. Fine things. Eating my grilled cheese and apple sandwich off the good china and such.
I also found all the jars of dirt I took from emotionally significant locations around the old place. Places where pets had been buried, my childhood play area, the hills around our barn. Had a good cry with mum when we found all that. It's going in the bookshelf, where all the cut branches from my beloved trees are stored as well.
This day was A Lot, but it was good.
*The only thing I can say in our defense is that life was really, REALLY hard when we first moved up here. The house looked like it had been bombed inside, and two shipping containers weren't even close to enough room to store all things we had spent a year desperately evacuating from our previous home. And as long as we thought, well, it's boxed up somewhere, so it'll be safe until we want/need/randomly rediscover it, there wasn't a lot of impetus to go looking for them.
Finally went through them today. One was nothing but shoes that didn't fit me all that well when they were new and which now were irrevocably taken over by spider nests. *shudder* A couple had clothing, towels, and other miscellaneous cloth items, more or less unharmed. Some of the totes had started cracking, though, and had let water in at some point. One of the hurricane lamps is badly rusted now, but perhaps not unsalvageable. There's a little wooden trinket box I've had since I was very young which has now come unglued, rusted, and mildewed away. I still think I can put it back together and refinish it, though, and I rather want to try. I also found the little cloth baby book--numbers and letters and animals--that I've remained weirdly attached to all my life (it's now safely in my bedroom).
If it seems odd that nice things and sentimental things were chucked under the porch all willy-nilly, uh...you haven't heard the worst of it yet. I. I own some really nice things? I know, not so you can tell most of the time, since I like to keep my space arranged around an aesthetic somewhere between "Howl's bedroom" and "bowerbird courtship structure." And it's not that I don't remember owning these things. I just haven't thought about them in a while*.
I now have an etched glass decanter and matching water goblets arranged on the DVD shelving in the living room. Right next to the crackle-finish bud vase in the form of a bamboo double helix, which was in the same tote. (Thank goodness I understood the concept of boxes within boxes and using ALL the bubble wrap.) They're stunningly lovely to look at. I even had my fizzy water with lunch in one of the goblets.
I want to make a point of using these things. I have room for them (sort of, barely, if I'm careful and creative) in the house. At the old place, they had to all stay in boxes because there just wasn't anywhere safe or, you know, flat available to display them. But I own nice things, and I'm increasingly hedonistic as the years go by. I want to enjoy pretty things. Fine things. Eating my grilled cheese and apple sandwich off the good china and such.
I also found all the jars of dirt I took from emotionally significant locations around the old place. Places where pets had been buried, my childhood play area, the hills around our barn. Had a good cry with mum when we found all that. It's going in the bookshelf, where all the cut branches from my beloved trees are stored as well.
This day was A Lot, but it was good.
*The only thing I can say in our defense is that life was really, REALLY hard when we first moved up here. The house looked like it had been bombed inside, and two shipping containers weren't even close to enough room to store all things we had spent a year desperately evacuating from our previous home. And as long as we thought, well, it's boxed up somewhere, so it'll be safe until we want/need/randomly rediscover it, there wasn't a lot of impetus to go looking for them.
