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January 10, 2006
Little Things
The first and only time that I defaced a piece of my childhood home occurred inside my bedroom closet. I would hide there from time to time, sometimes just to think, others to pretend that I was invisible. I found comfort in the smells of the small storage space. The old wooden floor and green sheetrock walls smelled older than the rest of the house. I would think about the families who might have lived there before me. I would search every nook and cranny, probing for clues. At one point, I thought about the future, imagining that some other child might seek out the same questions, and that is when I uncapped a Sharpee and began to write.
Who knows if that poem, written by a melodramatic eleven year old, still exists inside the old upstairs closet. In my pre-adolescent mind, the markings were placeholders for the future. Someone, I was convinced, would find my words fifty years from their conception. They would sit on the floor and wonder who the author might be what life was like in 1989. Mostly, however, my writing on my closet wall was a way of enacting a dream that I wished upon myself�to one day, by chance, find evidence of someone else�s life hidden amongst the most ordinary of things.
...to be continued...
Posted by callalillie at January 10, 2006 9:24 AM | Introspect , Old Enough to Have Way Back Memories
I used to write inside my dresser drawers. I'd also pull the drawers out and write on the back or sides. I wonder where those drawers are now?
Posted by: Ayelet at January 10, 2006 11:56 AM
I also used to bury things in the back yard and beneath our shed. I think most of the objects were eventually run over by lawnmowers or dug up by squirrels and dogs, though.
Posted by: corie at January 10, 2006 12:03 PM
did you ever make a time capsule and bury it in your yard?
Posted by: yp at January 10, 2006 3:44 PM
No, but I did dig a lot of holes in the background looking for them.
Posted by: corie at January 10, 2006 6:30 PM
I, too, wrote on my closet walls. The closet was a place where I would lay down a blanket and bring in a flashlight and just sit and read and be completely alone and unreachable. I loved it!
I so enjoy your blog because I love hearing about your explorations in NYC and your passion for history and its physical manifestations. Although I don't go hunting for pieces of the past, I love stumbling upon old, old photographs and especially pieces of writing: letters, journals, poetry. I worked in the archives of a VERY small museum for a summer and just sat in the basement and examined every little thing.
And then there is what I leave behind - what will survive? who will read my words in 100 years and wonder?
Posted by: leah at January 11, 2006 4:01 PM
