Comforts of alone and a place for memorabilia.
…………I simply remember my favourite things……..
Like the song from Sound of Music, it struck me this morning when I woke to something prodding my shoulder: it was my daughter’s little, old dog. He has been long abandoned and shares my bed for pure nostalgia. Looking at him, the heart gets both warmed and nostalgic. How very many stories that little dog tells. He had his ear cut off to make a powder puff! Then after the make up was done and it was bedtime, there were howls of remorse because the little dog was crying without his ear. We had a big operation and it was sewed back on, making him whole again and both able to sleep.
I sit up in bed and look around me. I sleep with my Grandmothers old, black and white comforter, the association obviously adds an extra layer of warmth and comfort.
The sheets she embroidered for my trousseau, which I finally decided to use after they lay in that dowry chest being treasured for who knows what? Now they are truly treasured by use, and as a reminder of great love and an age when ladies still indulged in the art of embroidery, and homemaking was a very creative craft. No instant mixes or meals on call and certainly no ‘Amazon’ to provide instant goods. I am now trying to follow the lessons she taught me — someday the willow pattern table cloth will be complete and the hot water bottles in my home have lovely, knitted covers. Some from her and others that I managed to do.
Before me is the dressing table at which I can still see her sitting. A gracious piece of vintage furniture that has many treasured memories and the drawers almost still hold her particular scent. I diligently make the pot pourri sachets for the lingerie drawer; it’s not quite her mix, but the tradition is alive.
A bookshelf full of my mothers collection of Georgette Heyer! How well those books have served, for both comfort and entertainment; how far they have travelled in both time and place. ‘The Grand Sophy’ was forgotten in a beach hotel in Penang the day my elder daughter decided to walk. Luckily they posted her back. ‘These Old Shades’ kept homesickness at bay on a long train journey back to school. They were the best comfort read when far from home and ‘alone’ happened. They still are, even though alone doesn’t happen that often.
The glass warmer: my little daughters first knitting attempt. A wonderful pattern of wool back, wool forward all in a mess, and dropped stitches.
The stickers on the mirror, when my elder daughter thought Mama was great! A happy reminder through the years when Mama was not so great or plain unbearable.
Family photographs that can take you on long, long journeys through time, memory tales of travels, picnics, weddings, sunsets and people.
Decanters: those beautifully decadent containers of many things good, most to do with comfort. The memory of my Grandfather holding it by the neck and carrying it to and from the drawing room every evening; the remembered fear that he might drop it. It’s still here to tell it’s story and hold those, happy comfort, elixirs.
My Grandmother sitting in her parlour, alone of a rare evening when I walked in and asked, ‘All alone Moms?’ Her gesture to said decanter and the response, ‘not at all, darling, Johnie Walker is always a great companion.’
For a long time, I have thought I need to de-clutter my life, there is so much stuff that I am surrounded with. No one is going to want it after and what am I doing dusting and polishing all this old stuff. Today, I am rethinking that. Perhaps waking to all this around me, and walking through my home seeing, touching, remembering, makes for never being alone.
I guess it’s the purpose of memorabilia.
Originally published at http://pavanemann.com on July 19, 2018.
