SPriNG ShowErS

We moved into what has become our only home in 1968. It didn’t take much to move us in. We had a bedframe and two twin size mattresses, a hand-crafted sofa that weighed more than my car, a bean bag chair, one floor lamp, a dining room table and chairs, one medium sized pot and a frying pan … and our wedding album. The house was a fixer-upper but we were young and willing to do the work.

We’d only been married for a little over a year and, so, we also brought the wedding gifts which included two sets of bath towels, one from my mother and one from my mother-in-law, four matching tea towels, three pot holders that my mom made, a spice rack and a set of white dishes that I bought at Grants. There were other gifts like silver trays, candlestick holders and tablecloths, but these were rarely used. Most reside where we put them in 1968.

Over the years we repaired, painted, added a family room and expanded the exquisitely tiny bathroom on the second floor and settled in to fill the house with the stuff of living. Two rooms became nurseries and the front of the refrigerator became the bulletin board of our lives.

Now, there is much more furniture, some of it that looks like furniture. Every surface is covered with photos and bookcases overflow with albums of photos chronicling our family’s growth as

Ramblings from the empty nest ann Ferro

well as lots of books. Truth be told, there are boxes of similar photos stashed in the attic that have been replaced by more current versions of the same people. Two drawers in the Hoosier are also filled with photographs.

And clothes …there are so many, some that reflect my spouse’s changing taste and those that are mine, most of which I no longer wear because I am no longer gainfully employed. Funny, I still find that there is not enough day to finish what I want to get done.

Don’t ask about the cellar or the attic. Please.

So, it was only this morning, as I was folding some rather ragged tea towels when I noticed that I no longer had any of said towels that could be hung over the handle of the oven without some form of housekeeping shame. Upstairs the bath towels sang the same song. I have one bath towel remaining from the ones that my mom gave us which I keep for sentimental reasons. The remaining towels could justifiably be donated to the vet or an animal rescue. I certainly could use a set of pots that didn’t scorch and an oven where I can bake on more than the bottom two shelves.

But I am more past that future and one thinks of what will happen when it comes time for our children to survey the result of more than 50 years of living in one house and figure out what to do next.

I should get rid of some stuff.

But … I would also like some new things, too. A set of tea towels that you can’t see through, matching bath towels and brand-new, not bought in a discount store, pots and pans. I would love some fresh paint on the parts of the house which now can be classified as examples of Shabby Chic decorating. More shabby than chic. I can’t remember when we painted anything inside. Chipped paint is not a fashion statement.

I am proud of the way our home is a kind of museum for the family from the sea floor flora that my spouse collected on his one and only scuba diving expedition to Figi to the so many examples of our children’s and grandchildren’s art and accomplishments…weedy handwriting describing spring using creative spelling and grammar, an illustrated exhortation to be kind. Priceless.

Yes, I should be deconstructing what has accumulated but even at this advanced age, I would like some new things … a freshening of mornings and days to enliven what remains. I’ve gone to so many showers for weddings and babies, I am thinking that it is time that we think about a replacement shower for us more advanced in years citizens to enjoy the surprises of unwrapping gifts while using the good China that hasn’t left the cupboard in 30 years and that no one wants.

Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.