The table is Father. Does it go against a wall or in a corner? Or stand alone in the center of the room? Doesn't matter. It fits anywhere, but still useful. A perfect wooden rectangle, sturdy and multi-purpose. My father and I built that table together, the third winter I came home from college.
The bookshelf is Mother. Awkward height, not enough shelves, doesn't match the table. I forget that I have these shelves for minutes or hours or days. But it holds my books and my spare change and my camel figurines. Mom gave me that bookshelf when the school didn't need it anymore.
The painting is Grandfather. The frame is reattached, badly, as the canvas had already shrunk away from years of neglect. It sits hung too high up on the wall, looking over my sketches and charts and posters, the first piece of art in my apartment. Blameless save for its amateurism, poor perspective and bad lines. We restored that painting together, the two of us, colouring in the background with sharpie where the canvas was showing.
The laptop is Grandmother. Silver and surprisingly sturdy for its small size, functioning amazingly well for its age. Badly in need of updates, with memory failing more often and various half downloaded viruses wreaking havoc on the hard drive. It can be kept on a long cord anywhere in the apartment, but I can’t let the battery run down or it crashes completely. She bought me this computer as a Christmas gift, my freshman year of high school. I wrote my first novel on it.
The television cabinet is Childhood Home. It’s small and not fancy, cluttered and fairly dinged up. It’s covered with memorabilia from bands and book series I’m not interested in anymore. But it holds a dozen sentimental treasures, and all my belief in magic. It was the first thing I moved into the new apartment, after dad took it down to build a real cupboard.
The bedside table is Family Legacy. Carefully crafted dark stained wood. Its four legs fold together and its leaves fold almost flat, to collapse or expand as needed, and it fits neatly in most parts of my home. Now it holds a bottle of feathers, a few shiny rocks, and all of my weed paraphernalia. I never noticed the end table until adolescence, and then I insisted on having it as my bedside table.
The potted plant is Community. Long, unruly tendrils come crawling onto my window sills when I least expect it. The plant pretends to be finicky, that it needs to be watered just so and get only so much light. When I neglect it, it withers, and I am always afraid I have killed it, but then, suddenly, there is a new, bright green tendril reaching up along my blinds. I bought this plant from my next door neighbor as soon as I moved away from home.
The bed is Adulthood. A queen sized mattress for a twin sized person. It has to stay in its corner because there is no room for it anywhere else. It is possibly the most comfortable bed I’ve slept in. Sometimes I wish I could put in a different corner, a more prominent place in my home, but it would look silly and presumptuous. The bed was the first piece of furniture I bought for myself.
The fridge is Drugs. It’s massive, much bigger than I had expected. Bigger than the ones in other apartments in this building. It was added fairly recently. It hums so loudly in the night that I can hear it though my headphones and it’s hard to think about anything else. So often I’ll go to it when I’m hungry but find there’s very little to satisfy me. Yet, it holds a lot of fairly necessary items. The refrigerator came with the apartment, and it’s the only thing in the room that can’t be re-arranged.
The bookshelf is Mother. Awkward height, not enough shelves, doesn't match the table. I forget that I have these shelves for minutes or hours or days. But it holds my books and my spare change and my camel figurines. Mom gave me that bookshelf when the school didn't need it anymore.
The painting is Grandfather. The frame is reattached, badly, as the canvas had already shrunk away from years of neglect. It sits hung too high up on the wall, looking over my sketches and charts and posters, the first piece of art in my apartment. Blameless save for its amateurism, poor perspective and bad lines. We restored that painting together, the two of us, colouring in the background with sharpie where the canvas was showing.
The laptop is Grandmother. Silver and surprisingly sturdy for its small size, functioning amazingly well for its age. Badly in need of updates, with memory failing more often and various half downloaded viruses wreaking havoc on the hard drive. It can be kept on a long cord anywhere in the apartment, but I can’t let the battery run down or it crashes completely. She bought me this computer as a Christmas gift, my freshman year of high school. I wrote my first novel on it.
The television cabinet is Childhood Home. It’s small and not fancy, cluttered and fairly dinged up. It’s covered with memorabilia from bands and book series I’m not interested in anymore. But it holds a dozen sentimental treasures, and all my belief in magic. It was the first thing I moved into the new apartment, after dad took it down to build a real cupboard.
The bedside table is Family Legacy. Carefully crafted dark stained wood. Its four legs fold together and its leaves fold almost flat, to collapse or expand as needed, and it fits neatly in most parts of my home. Now it holds a bottle of feathers, a few shiny rocks, and all of my weed paraphernalia. I never noticed the end table until adolescence, and then I insisted on having it as my bedside table.
The potted plant is Community. Long, unruly tendrils come crawling onto my window sills when I least expect it. The plant pretends to be finicky, that it needs to be watered just so and get only so much light. When I neglect it, it withers, and I am always afraid I have killed it, but then, suddenly, there is a new, bright green tendril reaching up along my blinds. I bought this plant from my next door neighbor as soon as I moved away from home.
The bed is Adulthood. A queen sized mattress for a twin sized person. It has to stay in its corner because there is no room for it anywhere else. It is possibly the most comfortable bed I’ve slept in. Sometimes I wish I could put in a different corner, a more prominent place in my home, but it would look silly and presumptuous. The bed was the first piece of furniture I bought for myself.
The fridge is Drugs. It’s massive, much bigger than I had expected. Bigger than the ones in other apartments in this building. It was added fairly recently. It hums so loudly in the night that I can hear it though my headphones and it’s hard to think about anything else. So often I’ll go to it when I’m hungry but find there’s very little to satisfy me. Yet, it holds a lot of fairly necessary items. The refrigerator came with the apartment, and it’s the only thing in the room that can’t be re-arranged.
No comments:
Post a Comment