20230731_162013

the Swing….watching the red washcloth flutter like a flag

i thought of the words of LaceLady in the comments yesterday where  she tells of a book   The Poetics of Space,   the author  French Philosopher Gaston  Bachelard   a particular chapter of drawers, chests, and wardrobes

and suddenly there was a FLOOD of images,  sensory images of DRAWERS….that thing  I  have in my mind/brain that is like a slide show……the projection on the wall….the click click click one after another of images……….

it is astounding how many i have….all through my life,  how much i  love drawers and what they keep      the small jewelry box like thing my Aunt had with small drawers and things in those drawers i didn't understand,   click,  the drawer upstairs in the attic room of her son who was 10 years older than me who i idolized,  that room where i wasn't allowed but went to look in his desk drawer full of baseball cards,  his father's old union buttons,  jackknives,  click,  my grandparent's drawers in the old oak library table with small papers,  my grandmother's penciled script, click,   their credenza,  napkins never used,  intricate silver ware butter knife,  tiny spoon   papers with  writing that i somehow knew was old,  way older than they were and from another country, click,  the built in drawers of the room i shared with my sister until she died…looking in her drawer afterward,  how it smelled like clearasil ,  click,  the drawers in the workbench organizers down in the basement of my father and grandfather, for washers, screws,  nuts, bolts,  WING NUTS,  then all sizes nails,  drill bits and on and on, click,  all the Everything Drawers of people's houses where i worked,  electrical tape,  rubberbands,  toothpics, click,  the drawers of the Old Cowboy and Alz Betty,  click,  the heavy drawers of big tools  in Bill's Shop that he paid me to clean now and then,  click,  my own drawers in all the places i lived,  the house on Spring Street that had kitchen drawers in the walls,  my Beauty Full and excellent junk drawer there,  click,  drawers in the baby changing table smelling of clean diapers

these are a FEW and all SENSORY memories….in total detail….as if i'd looked in them yesterday

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8 responses to “the Beauty of the Mind, the physical substance of the brain, where the Mind lives … somehow”

  1. Deb Avatar

    Yes! Especially “junk” drawers. The ones where people sweep things into. Yes, the feel of the slide or wiggle to open them and closed. And the smell of old wood, plastic, cardboard, metal.
    When I cleaned for money, I would open the junk drawer in a kitchen and could tell everything about the family and whether or not I’d be staying. Indexes of the lives under that roof.
    My grandparents raised their children through the Depression. In a drawer in a battered kitchen cabinet a broken clothespin held two feet of twine. Buttons wandered, waiting for their jar. Nails, broken tools, hard bits of soap, pencils one inch long. Nothing got thrown away if it had a morsel of use left in it. Junk? Treasures in treasure chests.

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  2. Liz A Avatar

    you have given me a gift … a way to escape the craziness that is my mind when it gets stuck in a rut in the middle of the night (usually in anticipation of some future event) … I will send my mind off on an errand to explore a drawer in hopes of lulling myself to sleep …
    and I recently noticed that I close my kitchen drawers by bumping them with my hip … does anyone or everyone do that?

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  3. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Oh this post started me thinking about my head being a junk drawer filled with so much stuff .. old stuff .. useless stuff. Stuff that is doing nothing but taking up space.

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  4. CatherinE Avatar

    I do. Or sometimes a gentle shove with a foot on a bottom drawer.

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  5. Saskia van Herwaarden Avatar

    wow, your memory Grace, not sure I feel the same way about drawers as you do, but I do have several strong images of particular objects in or on certain cupboards, like the yellow enamel breadbin in my grandparents house, the posh dinnerservice in our parents inherited mahogany cupboard, my mother’s chest of drawers full of her life-correspondence, and all the pairs of glasses she’d worn since childhood (I now own that chest and have kept those glasses). So much stuff brings back memories, for me at least, not always happy ones, that’s why it can be difficult to let go of the objects

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  6. maria Avatar
    maria

    grace , thanks for share your drawers story , o i like to rumble in mine when it is the moment …. it give me most of the time’s a smile … a twincle in eyes … the toughts ….and let them float into nowhere

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  7. Deb G Avatar

    I have a dresser of drawers that my dad or uncle made in high school shop (Dad can’t remember who built it…part of a set that they did for my grandmother.) Each drawer sort of has a theme but they are all out of control. 🙂 Maybe it’s a good day to reorganize the drawers?

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