Oftentimes there is a kind of comfort in a box of stuff that has looked the same for years.
In the humid whiteness of this years’ summer skies, I sit under the open windows of my newly birthed attic room. My self imposed Saturday night task – clear this space of stuff so the floor can be boarded.
I had made it into a game before I realised -transforming into my 12 year old self -a game of strength spatial awareness and balance – ( did anyone else as a kid, use their bedroom furniture to to do somersaults onto the bed? I blackened my front tooth doing that. Lucky I didn’t lose it the dentist said.) -painting steps in one hand and a basket of bits in another giving those arm muscles a pleasing work out; guiding the long poles of the clothes rails through the hatch and balancing steady down the steep loft stairs before stepping from stair to box to floor without so much of a wobble or curse.
So now fun over, I settle to sort through the pile of tools and bits of wotnot, my fingers taking on that familiar grime of sorting ; a sting of dust in a tiny fresh cut from a sharp edge…I soon pick up as speed as my eyes become accustomed to the tangled mix – picking screws from drill bits as my foremothers my have picked berries from weeds
I have the vague dream of the attic being all at once a minimalist Japanese meditation space yet also having a studio vibe with my easel set up and oh and a workshop – home tools to hand so I can see at a glance what we have and not end up with tubes and tubes of filler again..
The tools have travelled with us like much of the furniture, from home to home; space to space but never yet settled comfortably into a space of their own being crammed under stairs backs of shed never accessible hidden for years because of their perceived ugly functionality.
There is indeed a kind of calm to be had from the creation of order from chaos- methodically separating batteries and bicycle pumps; spanners and hammers; lightbulbs and torches and oh a tiny lego cyclops man so that’s where he disappeared to a decade ago..
But here’s this one box that I don’t want to sort. Its contents have stayed the same for decades – random items but each one sparks a memory – metal bits for skateboard wheels -I used to know what they were called and their purpose when my now grownup boys with boys of their own -were speed fiends adrenalin junkies. The metal circles sit waiting still in the box should they be needed – I don’t want to let go of the time before -the madness of a houseful of children the upside down times – a house stored full of energy unlike the ancient batteries rolling around in the bottom of the box – rechargeable batteries -a bit of investment at the time I recall- maybe 30 years ago way before net zero- the charging unit long since gone; the odd traditional lightbulb still survives – a definite keeper
The barn garage of my family home; sharp garden tools hanging on by a nail holding quiet power in their potential lethality should they fall in the far cobwebby corner
Nuts and bolts neatly sorted in various hand me down boxes – a red one, lacquered oriental from a few generations ago -had old coins inside a hexagonal one – a coin from China – where did that box go? experiencing my father’s personality separate from the office suit; the table manners; the rules of childhood. I peeked open the little drawers in the tiny wooden cabinet; lifted lids inhaling the metal woody oily vibe of it all.
From the attic window I see down onto the flowers, the buddleia the van gogh bough (an overgrown spindly branch but hey I see potential) of the greengage tree in the ‘waiting to be curated’ part of the garden -they are taking on a secret shape transforming into cherry blossom water feature with meditative flow but for now it remains, to the untrained eye, simply a mess at the bottom of the garden.