3/7
2010
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Celebrate
I bought a new table today. It has replaced the trunk that I asked my parents to buy me for my birthday two years ago. The one that I found online and waited for in the mail and tried to assemble before realizing that they sent two J pieces and no K piece and even so, my Dad tried to help me by slathering the wrong piece with vaseline to try to grease it into a slot that was just too thin.
When I ordered the trunk, I thought it was such a romantic thing. Something that would add a bit of mystery and history to my apartment. A perfect use for the antique padlock I found in my grandfather’s house after he passed away.
In reality, it was cheaply manufactured, easily worn and torn, and I stubbed my leg on the lock so often, by the time one bruise would fade I would bash myself all over again. This was not the sturdy, heirloom trunk I imagined owning one day. This was a not-so-inexpensive knockoff made of particle board with pre-drilled holes that didn’t quite match up to the holes in the hardware. I liked the trunk because it did its job of storing my candles and yearbooks and dvd cases. Things that don’t really belong anywhere in the open. It was functional, but it was missing the spiritual heft that I don’t think I even knew I was looking for in a piece of furniture.
I picked up this new table at Housing Works, so it’s new to me but used by someone else. It’s an octagon, which is what drew my attention to it in the first place, and made with nice, heavy wood. The shape is sort of like an octagonal bass drum, so it has side walls all the way down and doors that open into the storage space in the middle.
When I first brought it into my living room, I felt a hint of regret. It’s taller than the trunk was and it sort of looks like it belongs in a grandmother’s parlor. But now that I have sat back and lived with it for a few hours, I’m so glad I bought it. It makes me think of who owned it before me and what they used it for. A woman who saw me and my mom carry it out of the store volunteered that she would store liquor in it. Maybe someone kept blankets and pillows in there for when her kids slept over. Or Christmas ornaments or piano sheet music or VHS tapes that she couldn’t bear to throw out, even though she had the DVDs to replace them.
I put my trunk out on the curb and it was taken within the hour. I wonder where it went and what it’s being used for and whether the new owner is thinking about where it came from and what used to be kept inside. There’s even a chance it’s still in the building, like how I brought in the cedar chair that I found in our garbage last month.
Who knows.
My mom took me out to dinner tonight, after a day of some pretty difficult conversations about school and money and health and happiness. She asked me what I was going to drink and I said, “Nothing” and she said, “You have to drink something. We have to celebrate.” “Celebrate what?” “Who knows. Celebrate this day being over. Celebrate your new table. Celebrate March.”
I love my mom. And I love my new table. And I love March.
