Today, sparked by a purchase of fabric scissors and fleece fabric, Ty and I had a conversation about the items in our household - how, when you're a kid, you may assume that your parents just gathered all of their belongings all at once, before you came along. Of course, in reality, they collected things little by little, overtime; kids, though, don't always think realistically. And I sure didn't, but I never really thought back to this particular childhood assumption until now.
This made me think about the painting I love on the wall of my grandfather's condo, a city street in the rain; the elephant watering can used to water our indoor plants; my grandma's little candle holder that looks like there's fairies inside, and the little fairy door on her tree... the list goes on, and on, and on.
It's nice to think about the items in each space that I knew as a kid, the items that defined the personalities of the adults living there, looking at two separate collections of objects as a nice aspect of growing up with two separate homes. I had never thought about the origins of most of the objects existing in these spaces, the objects that I had seen frequently for my entire childhood. Here and there, I'll get a backstory, like the photograph of Cape Cod on our new kitchen wall, my dad's jeep somewhere in the image.
I'm looking around my dorm room, at the paper moons hanging across my desk, and they're reminding me of Frank Sinatra's version of "It's Only a Paper Moon," a song that brings me back to post-half-day-kindergarten afternoons in my Dada's car. Funny, how I sometimes do not even notice the little pieces of my upbringing in the objects I collect.
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