I was doing some “most” necessary housework today and as I was cleaning out a kitchen drawer I came across a rather odd looking wooden object. I turned it over and the memories began to flood my brain like molten lava blazing a trail down a mountain. My eyes began to mist over and I got that tingly feeling one gets as they are just about ready to cry. The object I held is a recipe holder made from wood. A crude little wooden iron with a clothespin attached. On the bottom in bold large script it says “ CHIP 1989….he was 10 years old when he made this for me some twenty years ago. It still looks like it did the day he gave it to me, okay so it has bits and pieces of cookie dough dried here and there, but the memories and the triumphant look on his face seem secretly etched in this amazing little gift.
Maybe this why I have this deep seeded need to mix old and forgotten treasures with my characters. Somewhere in their lifetime these were valuable pieces of knick-knacks to someone, whether they are old silver spoons, books, sugar bowls and creamers or even a rusty old lantern and I often imagine where they once were and the kind of person that had owned them…..they become my inspiration! Primitive characters were never my intention, they sought me out…..I can honestly remember the day that they came knocking at my door and yelled “Hey Old Lady Can We Come Out And Play?”.
I love old, uneven, rusty, broken and imperfect pieces of life….my house is full of them! Even my cats are old, broken and imperfect and discards that nobody wanted but Dan and I did (a whole other story). My furniture and my home generate the love I have for the past and all things “primitive” from the chipping paint on the walls, which are also littered with a ton of rusty nails to the old “buggy whip” holders suspended from the ceiling, old is good….old has stories and yes old is entertaining. So the next time you find an object that has been lost and gathered a time worn expression….look deeply into its heart and I guarantee you will be enriched by the story you come away with!
