Sunday, April 7, 2013

Stacking


It is finally springtime, more or less.  I have slowed way down, haven't written forever, slept through spring break though I also did a fair amount of cleaning and catching up.  We have been working on the yarden, mowing and cutting back- I can't believe that I let it go so far.  Strange, being like this- time is liquid and each day seems to be both eternal and fleeting, and the years?  I have no idea where they go.  I have always been bad with time- I can't remember much about what year I did what in, or how old I was when such and such happened, I have to go through an elaborate ritual of finger-year counting to figure it out.  Why?  I don't know, except that it is hard to make time important to me in that way- instead I just move from time to time, dawn to dusk, dream to waking.  I live through the time, but become anxious and upset when I start dwelling on 'oh, must get this done by x' or 'dang, missed that deadline' or 'I have so much to do and only x time to do it' or, worse yet, 'what have I done with all that time?'.  I imagine a life without those boundaries where I could move season to season, doing things as they come about.  I have to many lists and clocks and calendars.

Yesterday evening I was reading in bed- the manz was out at work- and just pausing to look around the room as sometimes I do.  It was not quite dark outside (yes, I was in bed reading already- and that's ok) and our room was lit with a combination of diffused twilight and my lamp.  I started noticing the stack in the above picture, and thinking of that- how time works, and where each piece in the stack came from, what they were once and what they are now.  I'm kind of like that.  The bottom white iron stand I saved from a dump in Boone- it was abandoned by the dumpsters and I loved its curves, the worn cream color, the fact that it was still sturdy after the rest of it was gone.  I imagine it was a seat at some time, with a cushion- (notice the dip) part of a vanity for a girl or lady.  Did they make them out of iron?  It doesn't matter, it is what I want it to be, and for now, that is a stand.  The large wooden box on the bottom- I'm not sure where that came from.  I've had it for a very long time- perhaps a flea market in Charleston?  Another dumpster find?  A cast off at an auction?  It is a paint-box, one of those used by artists who paint outside.  Inside it has compartments and a broken stand, stained metal cups that once held linseed oil and solvent.  Memories of paint.  I wonder who painted with it?  I was going to make something out of it someday- but I like it as is.  Above that is a jewelry box, the kind so common at one time.  Cream vinyl, red velvety interior, little shelf, mirror, pegs.  I have no idea where it came from either- yard sale or thrift store? It latches, but doesn't lock. The narrow white box is a cigar box.  This one I do know about- it was a project turned in by a student.  They brought in the box, sanded it, painted it with a beach and palm trees.  I keep letters in it- the student was from Samoa (of all places) and is now grown, tending bar in Wilmington- two of his sisters lived with me for awhile on the island after one of the hurricanes.  I run into one of them frequently in our walmart- her and her clan of kids, all tall for their age with long dark frizzy waves of hair.  Someday they will be my students as well.  The last box is the most special- the blue and gold tin, looking like something found in a treasure room.  This box was at the magic auction in Warsaw- the pharmacist auction where the manz first asked me out, where Melissa and I acquired all sorts of mortars and pestles, science glass, books, the magic cactus, my little feather pillow and this box- which was left behind, abandoned on a stack of stuff destined for the dumpster.  I saved it- and inside are notes from the manz, a dried rose, the red satin box my engagement ring was in, other mementos. Bits and pieces of time and place and memory.

I love things like this- cast off bits, stacked and used to create a new meaning, like so many words put in a different order.  Like my life, and time, this and that stacked to create the day any way I please, to fill with things expected or mysterious, to be quiet, private, personal and yet part of the all of it.