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If I Make It, I Will Keep It |
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Written by Jan Parker
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Tuesday, 24 July 2007 |
 As I’m sure I have mentioned before, I love old things. I feel so lucky to have had someone in the family that treasured things passed down to her and passed some of them down to me. I’m referring to my Aunt Kay. I introduced her a little in my last blog “Classy ladies and ordinary things.” As I write this, I’m sitting in the living room of my old 1799 house. I love it in here! Our last house was a split foyer we built in 1975. We raised our family there and loved the location but the layout of the house was not friendly like this house. There is something intangible about an old house. It gives off a feeling of welcome, of being old and wise and lived in.
 Sitting on the sofa in my living room I can see an old secretary desk that was my aunt's. She used to go to auctions and bought some really great antiques that way. I used to go with her from time to time, but I was probably only 7 or 8 and very timid. I mainly remember the scary, really old bathroom! I wish I had learned to appreciate old things and things passed down sooner. My grandmother passed away when I was 14 and when my mother and Aunt Kay went through her house, they offered me many of her things --- jewelry, her Victorian vanity, a Windsor desk. Oh, how I wish I had taken them! Much of her jewelry went to an older cousin who later pawned it and never got it back. I bet she regrets that now. My aunt was so mad at her! When my aunt moved into an assisted living facility, this cousin asked for this same secretary that is now in my living room. When the time came to move it, though, she declined as she was living on a house boat and didn’t have a place for it. I was so happy! It meant a lot to me because I remembered it from my childhood and my children remembered it from theirs as well. The toys Aunt Kay had collected from yard sales were kept in the bottom drawer!
Through the glass doors of the top of the secretary I can see two china dolls. These dolls originally belonged to two of my great aunts. I have a picture of them at about age 3 standing together each holding her doll. These same dolls! Aunt Kay kept them and passed them down to me. I treasure them!
 Now the paradox. I hate to keep things. Although you wouldn’t necessarily know it by looking at my office, I like to throw things away. If I don’t have a use for it and I can’t give it away to someone, I toss it. EXCEPT… my beads! My bead collection fills up an old printer’s cabinet in my office and has spilled out to mostly fill an old wardrobe in the guest bedroom here at home. As I have said in other blogs, I seldom use them to make anything, I just hoard them. Sometimes I’ll feel like making something but once I get the beads out, I end up just looking at them and appreciating their beauty, then putting them back. Unfortunately, unlike my aunt, I don’t see the value in saving things. I don’t have her vision. Oh, I’ll keep the old things that I love and that were handed down but things from my life and times don’t inspire me. I need to look at what I now treasure and remember time goes on. Those cross stitch pictures I did in 1978 and look so dated will, perhaps be treasured by someone some day so I have one rule I try obey when it comes to keeping things. If I made it, I will keep it. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 July 2007 )
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