It should come as no surprise that I am a collector of things. Pretty things, old things, dusty things, musty things. New things, old things, useful things, broken things. Things that make my heart beat, that make me laugh, that make me swoon. Things that drive the mister crazy but connect my memories from one point to another until an image appears like magic. No more elaborate than a simple connect-the-dots picture but so much more powerful in emotion and memory.
It has been months since we packed up the second tiny casa and careened back to the homestead. Months of thinking and planning and fine tuning and pretending I do not have a room full of
things that need organizing, unpacking, and putting away. Boxes of things. Jars of things. Too many things. My memories are elbowing into each other, trapped in a dark elevator moving up and down but not really going anywhere at all much like the piles of this or that, the piles I keep arranging, rearranging, dumping into boxes, shipping off to the thrift proud of myself for letting go but so, so,
so anxious I will lose parts large and parts small of my
self.
The truth is these things, these lovely, lovely, dusty, musty things are weighing me down. Keeping me past when I am now almost, almost solid and present. This new small job I have, small in hours and students and other people's eyes is enormous to me. It is all I think about. Every thing I look at I wonder how I can use it, how can I share it, with these small people I am gifted to care for? Many of my things have found a new home in the classroom and many more sit waiting in the wings for their debut. I am still acquiring things, good lord am I still acquiring things but these new old things I pick up at the thrift or at the park or in the garden are not for me but for the children I am gifted with. Now at the thrift I bypass the vintage tea cups or toys, in facts I barely see them, a glimmer in my peripheral like a ghost I may only spy when alone in the house. I move past the vintage treasures I would normally swoon to pick up (except crocheted hangers, I still reach for those and am now thinking that would have been a better less wordy photo for
collected) to grab wooden boxes and trays, scarves, and salad spinners because when you teach young children you can never have enough wooden boxes and trays, scarves, and salad spinners.
Along with the thrift I am now gathering nature. Sticks and twigs, leaves, and seeds. Mossy things, smooth things, bumpy things, and things that would look great under a magnifying glass. And after all those words up there I come to this, this bowl of rose hips which look so much like pomegranates (of course, of course,
of course) that I had to cut one open to see what was inside. These rose hips will be at our nature table along with a card with the word
rosehips carefully printed out in my best attempt at teacher writing.
Aren't they pretty? The sister-a-go-go planted quite a few roses in the garden and now I am gathering, gathering. Gathering for the classroom and gathering to experiment...rose hip tea anyone?
****Hello November and thanks for joining us this Saturday morning! It's offically a photo-a-day challenge (with words if you like but not necessary, I just tend toward wordiness). Click
here to see the photo list and
here to see Tara's photos). Hopefully you'll be inspired to play along with us, and at the end of the month we'll have weeks worth of fun photos to share with each other! Leave a comment and share your
sweet november photos.**
