Our Drawers

I got a crazy hair to rearrange our bedroom today. We have 2 oddly places windows that make it impossible to center our bed on a wall or hang a picture without it looking completely off. Makes me nuts.
As I was cleaning out junk here and there...(Barry's basket into the deep dark abyss...where he leaves things daily never to return to them again mentally or physically. But will without a doubt wonder where they are and then half jokingly accuse me of throwing said items away.) something caught my eye and made me laugh and ponder.



This is his change cup. One of many drop locations but mostly change and small items. Everybody has one, right? But it occurred to me that this cup could be mistaken for my fathers so easily and yet was uniquely Barry's.

• change
• bullets
• handcuff key
• electrical wire cover
• a key
• ear plugs
• batting cage token
• golf ball marker

Growing up I used to sneak into my parents room and go through their dressers, sometimes looking for keys, or gum or to steal every quarter I could find.

But sometimes just because it fascinated me. It gave me a sense of who my parents really were when they weren't being my parents. What did they love, what was important to them, what made them who they are.

I knew my mom kept every note we ever made her and I knew she loved us. She also loved old things passed on from family. She was not high maintainance but she liked nice jewelry. She always had cinnamon gum, nail files and clear polish and all her things smelled like Oil of Olay. She had many trinkets that had a story behind them only she knew and she could tell you every detail like it was yesterday.

My dad had all sorts of awards/plaques shoved in the back because they were not all that important to him. He had a harmonica that he has always wished he could play like his dad and he had a picture of his grandfather tucked away. He had bullets, medical supplies, pockets knives, belt buckles galore and everything smelled of leather and mint gum.

And oddly enough, neither one of them ever had very many quarters.