lindsayliveshere.org

Greeting the objects

I am back in my apartment and surrounded by own stuff again. And it’s weird. It’s like, “all this stuff is mine?” I never noticed how many small objects have wedged their way into my life. They are mostly: books, clothes, sentimental papers, and teacups/mugs. But also there are other things: half-empty shampoo bottles, two hairbrushes, two sponges, bills for the electricity and the gas, a small frying pan and a big frying pan, a dish drainer, short-shorts cut from once-favorite jeans, one Converse sneaker without a mate, the apron Deanna made me, the tiny owl from Becca, the blue crocheted pouch Tara got me from Chile filled with the tiny stones Amanda and I picked up on our cross-country road trip when we were 19. Hiking boots. Bobby pins. Are you serious? I am the keeper of all of these objects? Normally I would say: slim down, throw out the baby and the bathwater. But now I am just happy to see things that are mine all in one place.