Antiques..

My mother and I frequently go on “adventures.” We enter any store we find interesting, threatening, or anything else that sparks our curiosity (pawn shops, “psychic” book shops, consignment stores, antique stores, Goodwill, and Summerlin furniture stores far out of our price range just to mess around, etc) These “adventures” usually consist of going on errands to find something generally out of the blue (and there is little chance we actually find it). This weekend, it was a chest of drawers.
The drawers in my room broke more than a month ago, and are now jutting out at strange angles. Not to mention, I can’t open the drawers and put my clothes inside, so the floor surrounding is stacked up with various articles of clothing. I never imagined how difficult it would be to find a replacement- something unique, preferably paintable for the sake of personalization, the correct size, and not hideously expensive.

So far we’ve had zero luck, and have gone out searching for said chest of drawers every weekend for nearly a month. This weekend my mother proposed we go downtown and check out the thrift and antique stores to see if we could find anything of interest.

We passed a large antique mall, and decided to venture inside. They didn’t have what we were looking for, but they had just about everything else one could possibly imagine.

Antique stores are inspiring in a way, and the items there spawn questions in my mind as I look at them. I am quite fond of old things. Old books have an exquisite, unique scent and are genuinely charming (Where were they shelved before this? Who read them?), old dolls are wonderful (Who played with these throughout the years? Who was this special to?), old photographs are enchanting (Who possibly could have parted with these? How did they end up here? Who are these people and what were they like?), and whatever I decide to purchase (if anything) makes me feel like I’ve come home with a miniscule slice of history, however worthless it may be.

Needless to say, it was nearly impossible for my mother to pry me from the store. It seemed to continue endlessly: I would spend a long while inside any particular section, gazing at perhaps old Star Trek figurines, and then something like an old telephone would catch my eye from across the room, but on the way I would just need to stop and look at a nameless woman’s ancient wedding photos, strewn helplessly among the lost articles of other people, fractions of unknown lives- an eerie sort of memoriam. Entire photo albums- the year 1927 of someone’s life, photographs paired with cursive-penned descriptions: a year lost and now stacked among musty bags of Marvel comic books and old postcards.