[inspired by the title of a novel by Helen Garner]
If we had a spare room we’d make good use of it. We’d throw it open and welcome allsorts to
come and stay - objects rather than people.
A drawer full of post-it-notes and not just the yellow ones. Another bulging with inner tubes in various sizes, to guard against all manner of deflation. And one for that novel by Emma Donoghue that we have two copies of as where else better? Nestled next to the little rice cooking ball that looks like a robot planet, that so appealed in the catalogue, shiny with potential just as any robot planet would be, but which we’ve never used.
A small shelf of books - the handful we have truly loved and can’t bear to part with. Another with framed photos of those people we’ve parted with and can’t bear to love. A row of jars containing nothing but air, sealed inside on memorable days. A bundle of envelopes that once held letters in various forms, the typed and the handwritten, the cryptic, coded and downright blunt. The letters themselves have gone but the envelopes bear witness to our first encounters with bad news in its many guises.
Coppers in a pot just in case we ever find something worth buying for just one or two pence. A dish full of seeds collected from things grown in our garden – things we didn’t plant, but which grew from previous seeds deposited by passing creatures. And a pill box brimful of apostrophes - the should have used, overused and those kept handy just in case.
A drawer full of post-it-notes and not just the yellow ones. Another bulging with inner tubes in various sizes, to guard against all manner of deflation. And one for that novel by Emma Donoghue that we have two copies of as where else better? Nestled next to the little rice cooking ball that looks like a robot planet, that so appealed in the catalogue, shiny with potential just as any robot planet would be, but which we’ve never used.
A small shelf of books - the handful we have truly loved and can’t bear to part with. Another with framed photos of those people we’ve parted with and can’t bear to love. A row of jars containing nothing but air, sealed inside on memorable days. A bundle of envelopes that once held letters in various forms, the typed and the handwritten, the cryptic, coded and downright blunt. The letters themselves have gone but the envelopes bear witness to our first encounters with bad news in its many guises.
Coppers in a pot just in case we ever find something worth buying for just one or two pence. A dish full of seeds collected from things grown in our garden – things we didn’t plant, but which grew from previous seeds deposited by passing creatures. And a pill box brimful of apostrophes - the should have used, overused and those kept handy just in case.
