big dig

chapter 3: curious curios

King Henry figurines. Teacups, toasters, typewriters. Also: hats. Lots of hats. Top hats, berets, fishing caps hung from splintery beams in the old barn-turned-living-room.

The musty scent of centuries as I wander through stacks of ancient encyclopedias. Caressing the spines is like touching old skin. Chalky. Rough.

In the red hope chest, my Scottish grandmother’s newspaper columns. “You will find yourself belonging more and more to your old house,” she wrote, years before my birth. “For this is what happens: you belong to it, not it to you.” 

All this—and I, the sole curator, making room for my own self.