An attic is a wonderful, no absolutely horrible, thing to have. I have two and they were filled to the brim when I decided everything must be removed and assessed prior to an upcoming move. Filled with dread and grumbling under my breath, I started the purge. Within five minutes, I found a curiosity on the floor. Another object, long buried, caught my eye. Suddenly I saw the task differently and decided to approach it like an archeological dig.
DAY 1
Pottery shards with an old lace handkerchief
Years ago, my mother gave me a pair of Asian antique vases with delicate necks. One night, while I slept, one leaped from the shelf to the floor. The next morning, I found a lace hanky, yellowed with age, in the pile of shards. Who put it there? What was its ghost trying to tell?
Thinking answers might come, I put the shards and hanky in an old peanut butter jar and saved them because I have an attic that prevents rash decisions about what to keep and not. Today I threw the shards away and dropped the hanky into the narrow neck of the remaining vase as I guessed the hanky ghost might prefer over tossing it in the garbage.
Handmade tiles by Andean potter, Andre Lope.
When we lived in the Andes, we purchased pottery from a local artist who lived in our Lake Titicaca community. We commissioned him to make 100 tiles that we imagined using to make a kitchen or bathroom backsplash in the house we might one day build. The cut is irregular; no tile mason will work with them. Nestled in a box of straw, a nest for mice, I shoved them back into a corner. Keep for now.
Kid's Dental Memorabilia
Each year the kids had dental check-ups and were awarded "No Cavity Pins" with their photos. We attached them to a wire cage in the attic where we kept personal items during the winter months when our Durham house was rented. Each summer, the kids took note of this little gallery and how much their looks had changed from year to year.
I also came across dental drawings to show the headgear that seven-year-old Chas was forced to wear each night for a year to correct his severe under-bite. It included a helmet with wires attached to rubber bands that connected to metal hooks on Chas's upper jaw teeth. The dentist told us that this non-surgical cure was possible but rarely successful as no child he had met would tolerate the pain and sleeping on their back for an extended period of time. We felt so sad to tuck him into this nightly torture chamber, but stoic Chas bore the pain and discomfort for one year and corrected the dental problem. While he certainly didn't like it, he understood the problem and what he had to do to prevent surgery. What an amazing kid! We are told that his case is still presented to students at the UNC Chapel Hill Dental School.
Coins Worth $39
My mother used to drop coins into jars for each of her three grandsons and gave them to the boys on their birthdays. Mom reminded her grandsons that each jar contained some special coins, her cryptic way to bring value to the gift. I dumped my son's jar of coins into the sorter at Food Lyon and gave the cash to Chas as I thought about this example of ingrained gender inequity. Still in the attic, a velvet bag of wheat pennies my mother also saved for him. Don't know why I kept that; just did.
Photo - Honeymoon Cottage Pet Squirrel
Before we were married my husband and I rented a doll-house cottage in a cluster of pines, with a two-tiered Japanese garden off the back deck. The owner agreed to give us a tour, and I was immediately enchanted with the house. The owner did not live there but used it to meet her town friends for tea and a game of cards, a get-away from her sheep farm in the country. Charles noted things about the house that needed repair and said he could manage those himself. The interview seemed to be going well.
Then Charles said, before I could stomp on his foot, that he felt she should know that we were not married. She looked at us and said, "I am much more interested in your cleaning habits than your bedroom habits." As it turned out she was not a prude, but a retired researcher from the Masters and Johnson Institute that pioneered research into the understanding of human sexual response, dysfunction, and disorders in the 1950's.
This photo of the pet squirrel we fed by hand brought me back to that interview, to the wedding party we held in the back garden, and the honeymoon years we enjoyed there. A charmed setting where even a pesky squirrel wore a halo.
DAY 2
Circa 1938 Needle Point Art in Vintage Walnut Shadow Boxes
These were made by Charles's maternal grandmother, Ruth Nix Eldridge. Holding them, I remembered this stunning woman with icy white hair piled on top of her head, thick black eyebrows, and a personality that could charm a snake. But what to do with them? Time to pass them on. Yard sale for Ukraine.
TIN Cigarette Box with Bangladeshi Import Stamps.
Opened it to find aspen-shaped, dried leaves, a broken jade ring, and two unsigned love poems written to Chas.
Chas had two on again, off again, girlfriends while attending the American International School of Bangladesh. Which of his two girlfriends might have written the poems? He confirmed that they were written by his Ukrainian sweetheart, Katerina. I assume the broken ring signified their break-up and the poems were written in anguished amour, saved knowing there was something there worth keeping. Back together, they are a match made in heaven.
I'll sound like my mother when I ask Chas, "Aren't you glad I'm a hoarder?"
Missing Teaspoons
I have been told that socks and teaspoons disappear from every home at an astonishing rate. We have been low on stainless steel teaspoons for a long time, but thanks to my dig I found a basket of plastic party ware from the Dollar Store. Without hesitation, the bag was immediately sorted for the trash bin. But in mid-flight I heard some clinking, and investigated. I found half dozen teaspoons in the bottom of the bag, leftover from a backyard party. One less bag in the attic; spoons back in the silverware drawer.
Cheerleader Megaphone and Photos
When we moved from our house in Durham, I wanted to throw away my cheerleader megaphone, but decided to keep it. This time it's gone, holding no meaning to me. However, I did pause over the photos. (That's me first on left with my closest friends in high school- Monica, Ruth, Theresa, Debbie, and Billie Jo.
My mom sewed these pleated cheerleader skirts for the entire squad. Over the years, she brought this up whenever she wanted to emphasize that I owe her big time. Yes, it was a grueling commitment, that took far more time and effort than she realized, but it also served as money in the bank for getting me to do things I didn't want to do.
Lisa's African Xylophone
In Ghana, we lived across the street from the Peace Corps office. We had a large screened porch with comfy furniture and an open door, open fridge policy. When volunteers came into town for training or medical checks, they satisfied their cravings for cheddar cheese and cold beer on our porch, after a long stint of bush diet. Often we came home to find volunteers on the porch. Charles told them he would trade their bush stories for snacks or a meal, anytime, because it was the volunteers who truth-tested rural development policies and theories.
Our favorite volunteer was Lisa Kirkpatrick, from Hendersonville, NC, whose parents owned Forge Mountain Foods. Lisa's parents were relieved and happy when they found that a North Carolinian couple, living in Ghana, had befriended their beloved daughter. This was before mobile texts and email; communication was through snail mail. The Kirkpatrick's were so grateful to us, that at great cost, they mailed a Christmas box of yummy foods from their store for our Christmas Morning Breakfast. Lisa took over our kitchen and used her parent's gift to cook cheddar grits, country ham, biscuits with jams, and pancakes with maple syrup to our family and several other volunteers in town for Christmas.
Lisa bought this xylophone in the north of Ghana, in the community where she worked. In her second year of service, she lived through a terrifying tribal war. Hunkered down in her small house, her neighbors arrived with their baby boys for Lisa to guard from slaughter by the warring tribe. After several days, a Ghanaian army truck pulled into the village and rescued Lisa from the scorched earth village. Again, pre-mobile phone, the Peace Corps office in Accra was not initially aware of her situation. Once in Dhaka, she stayed with us for several months, working in the PC office to finish her terms of service.
At some point she was escorted back to the village to get her belongings, including her wooden xylophone. When Lisa finished service and returned to NC, she gave us this instrument because she could not take it with her. What a lucky find buried in the attic, and how happy Lisa will be when she sees it again after thirty years when we take it to her on our next trip to the NC mountains.
Calligraphic Message
During the years our children were born and growing, I held fast to two close friends, Sally Brett and Elizabeth Walters, who lived within a couple blocks from our house in Durham, NC. This is the place we returned each summer after ten months overseas. Over the years, we moved from country to country but we kept these friends and this neighborhood as our base. This calligraphic art made by Elizabeth, speaks to me of those two friendships: People we can turn to, so that being with them is like coming home.
As my mid-wife, Elizabeth also delivered our daughter Bronwyn. Her daughter, Sara, born a few months later became fast friends with Bronwyn.
Sally had two bright young daughters, Sara Scott and Megan. Sally took pride in knowing all the coolest things for kids to do to further enrich their talents. Each summer we returned to our brick bungalow under the big oak. My two friends and I pushed strollers through the tree lined streets and watched the kids play in the park, science museum, Regulator Book Shop or toy store. Sally greeted me each summer with, "This is what you need to know."
Both Elizabeth and Sally's house were filled with theater making and block building cache for the children while the adults drank wine, cooked dinner, and caught up. Sally set up kid's tables with miniature sterling silver, child-sized dishes, and cloth napkins. Summer was magical because of Sally and Elizabeth.
My husband Charles had a similar tight friendship with Sally's husband, George ,and Elizabeth's husband, Chris. Chris was a theologian with a grand sense of humor. George, an information technology genius, was a forerunner in computer technology, and the first to get anything Apple made, often in the trial stage. He gave us four of the first gmail passwords before we knew what they were. "Trust me, you'll want it," he said. In this photo Charles and George are standing with the first model of a Macintosh computer.
Elizabeth, dabbled in arts and crafts as a hobby and made beautiful handmade gifts. A favorite was Bronwyn's best infant toy – a sun face connected to the ceiling by elastic, with ribbons hanging within her reach, to grab. By pulling a ribbon, she could send the sun face flying over the ceiling. I was so excited to find it in the attic.
This piece of calligraphic art that Elizabeth made for us, describes how these two couples blessed our life, helped us to navigate return culture shock, and reminded us that we had come home.
DAY 3
A stash of Paper Towels and Toilet Tissue
A reminder of the 2020 COVID pandemic, which was quite a year. Americans are so accustomed to getting anything, all the time, and on demand. I was in hot pursuit of Viva soft paper towels, my favorite. When I finally found a pack, I tucked an extra in the attic.
Now I am acting as an American, I thought, whereas in all those years overseas there was no such luxury as paper towels. Pandemic shortages alerted us that the world is connected and we depend upon a smoothly functioning global chain to live the good life we enjoy.
We also saw how easily it can fall apart if we don't work together as a peaceful, helpful global community. What do to with this Viva, which translates as "Life".? Use it with gusto!
Baby Chairs
I found the wooden booster seat used by Charles # 1, Charles # 2, Charles #3 and Charles #4. A keeper until I give up hope for a grandchild.
I also found my first rocking chair, as well as Bronwyn's. She gave hers to a newborn cousin, Rae Willow. I'll keep mine since my mother kept something from my childhood and that's a big deal.
Photo
Here's Bronwyn with Grandmother Ruth, who gave her the chair. My dad, a basket maker, rewove the seat in my chair.
Newborn Baby Bead Bracelet – And here's the baby boy who wore the bracelet.
Fireplace Tools
When we closed out my in-law's home of 45 years, we found two fireplace andirons. We kept one and sold the other as part of the large "lot" of home furnishings purchased by a local resale business. Several days after the goods had been carted away, we found this photo of Charles's grandmother Pearl Ann Shields standing by the mantle of her childhood home on the Chesapeake. In the photo, we saw the andirons, as well as the brass candelabras, that we had also sold in the lot of goods.
We quickly called the company, "Everything but Granny's Panties", and begged them to return these two items. After two tense days of searching, they located them and told us we could pick them up. We put these andirons in our fireplace and the brass candelabras on the mantle; the extra pair of andirons went to storage in the attic. Perhaps these belonged to the maternal great grandparents. We put Pearl Ann's portrait by the fireplace, just to afford a good story with a warning to pay heed when clearing out homes of the deceased, and attics, too, for that matter.
Handwoven Alpaca blanket
My husband, Charles, became close friends with Miguel Andrango, a back-strap weaver from the town of Agato, Ecuador, near Otavalo, which has a renowned market for loom woven textiles.
Miguel's village was the last in this region to maintain the painstaking, ancient tradition of back-strap weaving. They could not compete in price with loom weavers who sold their goods in the local market at low prices. Most tourists were unschooled in the different qualities of back-strap woven and loom woven textiles and just wanted a bargain.
Charles had the idea that perhaps it would be more profitable to sell their skills, and by doing so to preserve the tradition. So, Charles set up a weaving school in a hacienda that was converted to an Inn. American weavers paid to study this tradition from Miguel and his community. The relations formed with American weavers helped Miguel to launch a magnificent career. These well-connected weavers from the summer weaving schools invited Miguel to their local art and craft museums, to demonstrate back strap weaving and to also sell their textiles to appreciative, wealthy customers in the art communities.
Miguel and his family held a special place in Charles's heart. In 1994 we took our children to the Galapagos Islands and then up into the highlands for them to meet Miguel, only to find that Miguel was on tour in the U.S. His wife Josephina and one of his sons greeted us as if it had been yesterday and told Charles, wait a minute, I have a poncho my dad wove for you. That was ten years prior to our return visit. Somehow, Miguel trusted Charles to return and thus held the poncho in that trust. We added some moth balls and sealed it and the blanket in a garment bag. Another keeper.
Look Magazines from 1960s, featuring men on the moon and John Kennedy's assassination. My mother kept these along with old newspapers, hoping that one day they would be valuable heirlooms. Interesting to look at but not keep. Ukraine yard sale fund raiser.
Collection of Antique Children's Books
I was surprised to find this basket of old books, thinking I got rid of them when we moved into this house twenty years ago. I collected these over the years that I pushed my dad's wheelchair through flea markets (his favorite activity). I guess the basket of books was one of those things you keep because you have an attic. Today I could see that sweltering attics provide poor conservation for old books and photos.
This time, gone for good, but not before pausing to enjoy the memory of my dad with his bargains piled high in his lap. Old clocks, jars, locks and keys which he cleaned up and advertised over local radio to resale from his garage, not so much for the money but to lure interesting people with their own stories, to brighten the life of a housebound paraplegic. Keep the memories; get rid of stuff.
But sometimes it’s the stuff that snags the memory. Therein lies the problem.
Photo: My dad, Howard Edsel Bowen, and grandsons, John and Chas.
DAY 4
Chicken Prints
My youngest brother, Joey, collected rare chickens in a pen behind my parent's rural house where they moved when he was in fifth grade. He entered them in competitions at the NC State Fair.
Joey loved everything outdoors. Even as a young boy, he roamed the forests for hours, collecting interesting things. By middle school, he set out in the pre-dawn forest to check his traps, and skinned his catch for the fur, which he sold. Later he studied taxidermy and filled the house with dead animals. He now operates Tomah Mountain Sports Bear Hunting Camps in Maine and Canada. His house is full of dead bears, an eerie sight for some visitors. Here's a photo of my mom hugging one of the bears.
In our years overseas I hung these chicken prints in our kitchen. They reminded me of my much-loved "baby brother," who is ten years younger than me, and the lesson that you don't always have to love what somebody does to love who they are.
Dog collar with tags twisted around a blue ball
These belonged to our cocker spaniel, Peru, who was our pet for thirteen years until 1999 when she died. Our daughter, Bronwyn, named the spaniel "Peru" to remind her of the country that she loved, and where our puppy was born.
Some Peruvians took this as an insult that demeaned their country, but usually accepted Bronwyn's intention as an innocent compliment, suggesting we call her Perucha, which we did. When I held the ball and collar, my throat burned and my eyes swelled with tears. Our pet cocker, Peru, with her glossy white and tan coat returned to me for those moments.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but holding the artifacts of those pictured rekindles a more powerful emotion than a photo. The delight and pain that come with loving and losing a pet, of throwing her favorite ball to fetch. That's what attics are for.
Red Enamel Vase with Mother of Pearl Bird
My fifth grade teacher assigned a foreign pen pal to each student. Mine was from Korea. In the attic I found this vase he sent to me. I had no idea that I still have it, and then in an old scrapbook, I found one of his letters to me.
In the photo he is much older than me. I vaguely remember that he proposed marriage to me, which freaked me out, and I stopped writing to him. Wonder what his future held? Did I send him a souvenir? What might it have been? It was this vase that opened my eyes to the wider world. I could find the country of Korea on the world globe on the shelf by the window and knew that real people lived there. Having a pen pal gave me the idea that one day I might travel beyond my small town.
Decision: donate vase to the Yard Sale for Ukraine.
Speaking of Weddings...
Here's my wedding hat, special because my mother and Charles's mom worked together to make my wedding dress and this hat that I wore instead of a veil. The hat box had collapsed but the hat and wedding dress are still in good condition. So is the marriage.
PIPE Childcare Center Needlepoint Plaque
I began my career as an early childhood teacher in Durham county and after three years was invited to become a parent educator in a low performing school in a blue collar neighborhood.
The parenting classes offered a simultaneous play experience for toddlers and preschool children while their moms discussed parenting with me. The moms learned how to stimulate and talk to children in a way that helped children to develop intelligence and good behavior. These stay at home moms suddenly realized that they had control over their children's future success. I was so impressed by how much expertise they gained; the evidence was in their children's growth. I thought they would make incredible child care center teachers.
The school and parenting program administrators discussed the benefits of opening a primary school-based day care center for community children as well as those of teachers, providing work-site child care. I wrote a grant proposal in 1979, to open a center for children ages two to four years, which was awarded, and then I hired the moms from the parenting class to become the teachers. This became one of the nation's first school based day-care centers with the triple purpose of parenting education, work-site child care, and a laboratory by which parents could develop further expertise by teaching. We called it Parent's Involved in Preschool Education with a bubble pipe as the logo, and the abbreviated name, "PIPE". Through the program, parents in the community came to realize that the preschool years matter most for school success.
While working at PIPE, I became pregnant with our daughter Bronwyn and wondered who would care for her while I continued to work as the program director. I decided to write another proposal to the NC Department of Human Resources asking them to fund center expansion to include infants and toddlers. They made a site visit and were impressed by what we had accomplished. However, the request was denied since we had already received one grant and other areas in the state were prioritized for complimentary education resources funding.
Never taking "no" for an answer, I wrote back and told them that I was aware that sometimes there were allocations left over for various reasons and that if they found themselves in that position, please remember us and know that we were ready to get up and running. The day after Bronwyn's birth, I received a call to my hospital bedside telephone from the Department of Human Resources saying they had decided to award the infant/toddler center. During their previous visit I had hoped they wouldn't realize I was pregnant and thus think I had ulterior motives for the funding, but I did, and they knew it.
Soon, I was able to take Bronwyn to work with me, and breastfeed her on-site as all new mothers should have the comfort and support to do. When I left the center in anticipation of an overseas move, the staff made this needlepoint plaque for me to remember our good work and good times.
DAY 5
Myrtle Hensley Bowen's Handkerchief
My dad's mother was adorable, loved by everyone. When my brother Ron and I were preschoolers, she kept us for my mom to do her Saturday shopping. As soon as mom left, Granny would give us vanilla wafers to dip into sweet and creamy mugs of coffee saying, "Don't tell your mother."
Granny absolutely never said anything bad about anyone else, in fact I think she only saw good in others. After my dad became a paraplegic, she wrote him a weekly letter wanting him to know that he was loved, and when I lived overseas he wrote a weekly letter to me, a reminder that I was loved, until he died in 2001. When Granny died, my aunt that I called Queen Mary gave me this hanky to remember Granny Bowen. I just mailed it to my daughter Bronwyn who, like Granny, always carries a clean cotton hanky. Granny did it for decorum, Bronwyn for the environment. I'm glad it was in the attic.
Handwritten List of Stocks
I opened a box of papers we gathered from my mother-in-law, Grace Llewellyn, after she died, and found this handwritten list of stocks. I smiled remembering that Grace's mother-in-law, Pearl Ann Shields, took half her weekly allowance, doled out by Dr. Charlie for household expenses, and secretly invested the money in stocks. By the time she entered an assisted living facility in Richmond, she had ten spiral bound composition notebooks filled with stocks. Her tax advisor suggested that she give each grandchild $10,000 per year to reduce her portfolio and eventual inheritance tax penalties.
What a blessing. The money helped us manage household expenses while Charles was in graduate school. With her final gift, we bought 4 acres of wooded land on the Little River in Durham, which we still have. When we visit the property, we never fail to thank her for the pleasure of cool mist spraying from the river boulders in this dense forest refuge. The children love this place. How nice they have this lasting gift from a great grandmother they didn't know.
When Pearl Ann wasn't buying stocks with her grocery money she saved and bought early American furniture and paintings, several pieces that we are fortunate to have inherited. In a small world story, I was visiting the home of a colleague who lived in Rocky Mount in the mid 1970's. I admired her house full of fine antiques. She said, "We owe it all to a woman from Richmond, Virginia named Pearl Ann Shields. My husband lived in her carriage house apartment when he was studying at UVA. On Saturdays, they spent the day roaming antique stores as she taught him what she knew." I was shocked and told her that Pearl Ann was my fiancé's grandmother.
When I saw Grace's list of stocks, I realized she had been taking her cues from Pearl Ann. Both Grace and Pearl Ann were brilliant women, one with a talent for investments and the other a talent for classical piano. Both were stay-at-home housewives. Pearl Ann had little choice due to expectations of her era, and Grace's generation had expectations (Cinderella Complex) that it was the man's role to take care of them while their role was to dress well, keep a tidy house, the kids' noses wiped, and hand him a cocktail upon arrival home.
With this list of inactive stocks in hand, I am reminded of how many clever women should have been running the world, or at least half of it.
WINGS
One of the blessings of living abroad was the lack of "things." If you wanted a Halloween costume, for example, you had to make it. Bronwyn wanted to be a bird, so her dad painstakingly cut out cloth in the shape of wings and then sewed shimmery cloth feathers on the wings. What a great dad! Of course I kept them, and him.
"Mutsy"
Grace, Charles's mom, and I were doing some Christmas shopping for our two kids. The first thing that caught Grace's eye was this gigantic, soft-stuffed dog. She laughed and said, "I want this for me."
When I wrote my blog on Sara Grace in 2021, I told the story of those dreaded cooking gadgets she received as gifts from her husband until he became friends with a talented jeweler who led him down a new path to Grace's happiness. Now that he was open to gifting comfort and joy instead of time-saving kitchen gadgets (she hated to cook), I suggested that he consider the stuffed animal as a Christmas gift for Grace. She was delighted, named him Mutsy, and napped with him on the sofa every afternoon for years.
DAY 6
Boxes and Boxes of Toys
My daughter and son arrived to help me with the second attic filled with childhood artifacts. They were summoned with an edict to go through their childhood toys, dividing the contents between keep and cast.
I discovered there is a place in between – a place of memory and storytelling. They took the boxes to the back deck to unpack. They held up each toy and reminisced, laughed a bit and shed a few fake tears, but ultimately kept very little from an attic of toys that at one time they assured me they could not part with.
I was most interested in their baby clothes, and remembered them wearing each outfit. Chas, a Lego-maniac, kept his Legos and his magic kit partly built from his grandfather's childhood magic kit. I kept his "lovey", bunny. Bronwyn kept a tiny set of knitted people and animal figures, her travel toys, as well her Breyer's horse collection.
Interestingly, most of what they kept were essays they had written about their lives and mementos from summer camp, vacations, and activities they pursued like rock climbing or horseback riding that required years of skill development and dedication. Here's Chas's essay on "tomatoes." We have this photo to prove to him that as a toddler he was sent to the vegetable garden to collect tomatoes which he bit into as he plucked them from the vine. He refused to believe it was true and never tasted another tomato until he was served one stuffed grape tomato as a first course in a restaurant in Bali. It was delicious and broke his phobia. The toy attic is now empty.
Tea anyone?
We inherited silver from Charles's parents, boxes still taped from our move here 20 years ago. Bronwyn helped me sort the sterling from the silver plate. She and I, both happy to keep wine chalices and mint julep cups, have no interest in a complete silver service for coffee and tea like those that graced fine dining rooms in the south. I asked my friend, an art dealer, what we should do with it? She said toss the silver plate. Take a road trip to Charleston, and show the sterling to any antique store on Baker street. So, Bronwyn, a trained bar tender, made us a mint julep and we planned a vacation to Charleston. That's what attics are good for.
Vindication Box
For years, my husband accused me of discarding his boy scout badges, representing the long climb to become an eagle scout, and even more importantly his 1960's Vietnam War Protest Pin Collection.
The pins are mounted on a Yippie flag that my husband Charles stole from the police during the March On Washington 1969. Yippies were members of a radical anti-establishment group founded in the US in 1967. The police had arrested the yippy and put his flag and other things in a pile beside the Washington monument. Charles jumped across the police line, grabbed the flag and fled.
I had begun to think that maybe I had. It's been twenty or thirty years since I've seen them, and I'm known for recklessly throwing things away, including one of Pearl Ann's $10,000 checks. But alas, Bronwyn opened a box and there they were. Such a sweet daughter.
DAY 7
Royal Danish Christmas Plate Collection
A box full of these with the papers and descriptions. The blue porcelain plates covered one wall of Charles's parents dining room. If you know anyone who collects them, send me an email. Waiting to find a lucky recipient.
Catherine Ryan Jewelry
I absolutely could not believe that I found three lost pieces of jewelry in the drawer of Charles's great grandfather's gentleman's vanity, which I almost gave away to the Ukraine Yard Sale without looking inside. Catherine is one of our most talented friends, full of whimsy, as is her art.
She once made a piece called Crazy Quilt for Babies Grand that was on display at the North Carolina Museum of Art .She studied the lives of great pianists and then made a small 3-D frieze of their faces as she imagined they looked as children. She mounted the porcelain busts just above the keyboard made of black and white silk strips on a full-size baby grand patchwork quilt that she constructed from in rows behind each bust. Each crazy quilt pattern, in the row behind the bust of the musician, captured the sound of each musician, all made from velvets and silks she purchased in Paris.
She now lives in the Mexican Wars District of Pittsburgh and unfortunately we don't see much of her. I wish she lived next door. No, I wish she lived in my upstairs guest room. That's how delightful she is. Over the years she made museum pieces out of porcelain and metal. But in the early days she made jewelry to prevent artistic starvation. I love my small collection of jewelry and was sickened to lose them, and then delighted to find, in my lost and found in my attic.
Charles's Childhood Scrapbooks
I had never seen these little scrapbooks Charles produced to remember family vacations. I have a feeling his mother forced him to do it as an enrichment activity. At any rate, I was ready to toss, but Bronwyn thought they were wonderful. "How could you toss these?" she asked. That's why cleaning attics require a second opinion, a censor of sorts.
All done, close the door.
One attic is empty and the other still half full, but the remaining boxes are labeled with contents and I have plan for discarding each. A big step forward from where my excavation began. We'll donate the porcelain mushroom collection to a Fungi museum and take the sterling to Bakers Street, Charleston, where we hope to find some northern transplants who want to decorate an antebellum home. I've heard they exist. Some remaining boxes will travel with us when we move. Most that was here was given away.
The Yard Sale for Ukraine, by the way, raised $40,000 for the Salvation Army to spend on relief to the Ukrainian people and it’s a good feeling knowing that our attic made a healthy contribution. With each item donated I thought of our Katerina, who is like a daughter to us, and her family.
Having completed my attic purge I visited my friend and relative, Debbie Walters Denton, who has to remove contents of two huge attics before she can sell their home. After several yard sales, these tables remain full. If anyone can sympathize with her predicament, it is me.
We both agree we have become a country that suffers from plenty, take that anyway you wish.
Reflections
During the days I was clearing the attic, I sometimes listened to an audio book, Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler. One of the story's characters said something that summed up this attic clearing affair for me, as follows:
"The things we keep, remind us of what we lost."
I experienced the meaning of this quote during my attic archeological dig. While I am relieved that the clutter is gone, I am also a bit saddened that I will not take this journey again. I loved the hours talking to Chas, Bronwyn, and Charles about family history as we sorted the stuff.
While saddened that I may have some regrets down the road from things I gave away, I am also heartened to know that each of the decisions to keep or toss was not made alone. Clearing attics is a family affair.
Written by Deborah's 3 Muses @ https://www. Deborah-llewellyn.com/blog
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