You are where you live

There are drawers which stick.  Chips of wood or gold leaf here and there.  Some legs are wobbly and the oil paintings are caked with cigarette smoke.  Yet, each piece is exquisite.

I live with relics.  My home is a collection of cast offs, discards, and inheritances.  Chairs have been salvaged from the street, tables have been stripped and painted and stripped again.  Paintings have been reframed and cleaned with nail polish remover (tread lightly).  Silver dimpled and polished, gleaming despite the dents.  Bone china, paper thin, displayed in the kitchen cupboards, one side from Sassie, the other from Gran.  Even my fine linens are handed down.  

And that which I couldn't beg or steal, I borrowed.  Only 8 of 40 silver mint julep cups are mine.  The centerpiece of the table, an urn which looks like a trophy, is my mothers.  I used 8 of her sterling forks for Derby party, not to mentions two egg plates.  

There is something comforting to me knowing that with which I live with has been loved before me.  The exceptional green bisque of the nymph which was Gran's, the sterling coffee pot of Sassie's, the stunning Dorothy Mead over my mantel which belonged to my uncle.  As I am a mosaic of people, so is my house.  I do not own a piece from Pottery Barn.  Once, I had a plastic bowl for Teddy from Ikea.  I find Reconstruction Hardware to be grossly overpriced.  

I prize my pair of handpainted italian end tables from Goodwill and the barrel chair I bought for 12 dollars at the flea market.  Even the pieces I have acquired from the monolithic Home Goods are "dent and grab" specials.  

As a child, I brought home birds with broken wings, worms, baby squirrels fallen from the nest.  I have always loved the unwanted.

I look longingly in the Horchow and Ballard Design catalogues.  I devour Traditional Home and vintage Southern Accents.  I yearn for the cohesiveness, the tranquility of matching nightstands and carpets chosen specifically for a room.  

I have rewritten the end of this blog 4 times now.  What is it exactly I am trying to say?  I guess, embrace what you have, work with you have got, don't be afraid to ask for more but be ready to accept what it already is.  My house is a metaphor.  Who knew?