He must of acquired it second hand, none of it looked new. But all the pieces shared a kind of sympathy, and the fact that they were suffocating under papers and books made them more attractive than less.
-Nicole Krauss "Great House"
What does the furniture you surround yourself by say about who you are?
I ask this because recently I have been missing things I left in my old home. I've tried hard not to become attached to things. I live in a small efficiency apartment and most of my possessions are books and clothes. I don't like feeling attached to things. However, despite this, I'm missing things I left back at home.
These things, all family antique furniture traveled with me through three different houses in college, across the state of Washington twice and were in my room all through middle and high school . They have history, not just my history, but the history of my family and where I came from. Now, these things are sitting in my mom's basement collecting dust.
When I moved I thought it would be cathartic and symbolic to leave the old and begin fresh by making new. Now I realize that the past shapes the future in a way that you will never escape. See: Nostalgia. idolization of a past that never existed
The things I own show you who I am now.
You find a slew of new-to-me used furniture. Each piece was either given to me or found on the side of the road and refurnished by me. I do not have ties to the furniture. I have no history to the pieces, and in a way, it is symbolic of the life I live. Everything in my life is new.
I miss being surrounded by history, my history. My desk was my grandmother's in the 1940's when she was a substitute in an elementary school and my dresser was my great-grandfathers. Every night before bed, he wrote a list of tomorrow's activities and left it on the top of the desk. I have a large globe that was made just after WWII that sat in my Grand Uncle's living room surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. These things have meaning outside of the life I live now, but they are also connected to who I am and where I came from.
My free-to-me-table, my redone dresser, re-furnished chairs and bookshelves still have some sort of life, or history to live. However, while everything in life still feels new, I suppose it would be comforting to have a reminder of the past, a gentle reminder that who you are now is directly linked to where you came from.
I miss being surrounded by history, my history. My desk was my grandmother's in the 1940's when she was a substitute in an elementary school and my dresser was my great-grandfathers. Every night before bed, he wrote a list of tomorrow's activities and left it on the top of the desk. I have a large globe that was made just after WWII that sat in my Grand Uncle's living room surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. These things have meaning outside of the life I live now, but they are also connected to who I am and where I came from.
My free-to-me-table, my redone dresser, re-furnished chairs and bookshelves still have some sort of life, or history to live. However, while everything in life still feels new, I suppose it would be comforting to have a reminder of the past, a gentle reminder that who you are now is directly linked to where you came from.
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