Sunday, April 08, 2012

Journey Through the Past

Part of the fun of unpacking stuff is finding things that haven't seen the light of day in years--or in some cases, decades.

Today, when I was unpacking a few boxes over at Marchmont, I found some decorative items that we used to have in the kitchen at the Horseleg Creek house in Rome. Among the knicknacks were several copper molds that we used to hang on the brick wall of the kitchen there; I haven't seen them since we packed them away in September of 1999 in preparation to sell the house.

I'm aware that copper molds aren't trendy in terms of decoration, but as is the case with so many things from the Horseleg Creek house, I remember very well how we came to purchase each of them, and I can picture them hanging on the wall there as we ate breakfast. Since there was a narrow space in the kitchen at Marchmont that seemed tailor-made for them, I hung the molds there. Of course, each item that we unpack and display there makes Marchmont seem less like an overflow storage space and more like an addition to our home.

There's something nice about revisiting items from the past; each item seems to be imbued with the pleasant memories that resonate through it, as if it somehow absorbed those memories and have made it a part of the item itself.

Perhaps that's why, in spite of some of my best efforts, I still retain too many things from my past. Items are sometimes more than their physical nature; they are links to moments of joy.

1 comment:

Pam said...

Cliff, I just recently hung some in my kitchen that belonged to our grandmother. Way before she got sick she gave them to Mom and they hung in our kitchen for years. Of course at that age I was not interested in what was hanging, where it came from or who gave it to Mom......Mom packed them up years ago when she redid her kitchen and just last month she unpacked them, giving them to me. When I learned where they came from I was so happy to take them home and hang them. That is part of our history hanging on our walls....and the memories~