Just to the right of the door, leading from the living room to the stairs and the upper levels, is one of a pair of comfortable chairs, one where I sometimes doze on the odd occasion when I feel the need for taking an afternoon’s siesta.
I would stress that taking an afternoon’s nap is not the normal run of the day, there being too many leaking taps, doggy walks, curtain poles to re-hang, and on, and on, and on. But from my – shall we call it my napping chair - I have a clear view out of one of the front windows of my house, so can easily spot changes in the weather, passers-by and anyone feeling the need to approach my front door.
Just in front of the chair, between me and the small upright piano which sits below the window, is an old wooden chest.
The chest is about eighteen inches high, eighteen inches wide and two feet long. It more probably should be described ‘lidded wooden box on castors’, and takes up the central space between the chairs, a sofa and our small black cast iron wood burner.
Inset into the lid of the of the chest - and yes - I will continue to accredit it with the honorary title of being a chest - is a small brass plaque which reads ‘L.Lloyd O.A - MX96369’. Len Lloyd being his name, Ordinance Artificer meaning he held certain engineering skills in his role in the Royal Navy.
This was my father’s toolbox and returned with him following the War. Throughout my childhood years it sat in a corner of our leaky wooden garage, serving to store a few rusty tools, screws, nails and a few other bits and pieces right up until the time my father finally passed away in the late nineties.
There was something about the history of that old box, its shape, its size, its solidness – I don’t know – an attachment that made me want to hold onto the oil stained toolbox after both of my parents had finally passed away. So I spent some time, one spare afternoon cleaning the wood of its years of accumulated dirt and grime, rubbing linseed oil into the wood and repolishing the brass plaque to get it into a state where it would work as a small, if quirky, coffee table for practical use in our front living room.
Fortunately my wife also likes the chest, and we use it to store a small wooden trainset our kids had played with during their early childhood years. The kids have moved on now, but the train set still sits there in its box. No doubt the box will play its part again one day, to be opened this time for the delight of our grandchildren when they finally come along.
There is no more to say really, the chest sits there as it has done throughout the years and hopefully as it will do until it finally passes on to one of our children, the small brass plaque acting as a reminder of the history of a small wooden box.
There is a ceramic pot on my bookcase. It sits on the lefthand corner next to my growing collection of books to be read. It reminds me of the time when making ceramic pieces was integral to my identity.
I began potting, years ago when I was out of work and frankly desperate for direction. It wasn’t a plan as such to take up ceramics. It was mostly a whim based off an old memory of making a pot at a taster class. I walked into the studio unaware of the journey I was about to undertake. It was a journey into discovering a new medium, one that spoke parts of me that I had never been able to sufficiently express with words. It was like coming across an old picture from my childhood and realising that I hadn’t dreamt this image up.
It’s been almost a decade now since I sat in front of a potter’s wheel and I wonder if I’ll ever get back to it. I wonder if my hands will remember how to speak these parts of me. I’m hoping it wasn’t just a phase, a long past season of my life that I’ll keep looking back on. I’m quite sure I’m not the same person who wondered in blindly into the ceramic studio. I try not to dwell on what that means.
This prompt touches something I’ve been thinking about lately — how the objects we notice aren’t just things, but small mirrors for the weather inside us.
Some mornings it’s the key left on the counter; other days it’s the cup that stays warm long after you’ve set it down.
Attention becomes a form of listening. And once you start listening, the world begins telling the truth you weren’t ready to say aloud.
I love how this prompt invites writers to slow down enough for the objects to speak.
That’s where the real stories usually begin.
I’ve been exploring this idea in my Notes from the Neoverse dispatches, especially the ways attention becomes its own emotional architecture.
I wrote about my mother's vintage Brownie camera:
http://bit.ly/3Ye40QT
The Little Brass Plaque.
Just to the right of the door, leading from the living room to the stairs and the upper levels, is one of a pair of comfortable chairs, one where I sometimes doze on the odd occasion when I feel the need for taking an afternoon’s siesta.
I would stress that taking an afternoon’s nap is not the normal run of the day, there being too many leaking taps, doggy walks, curtain poles to re-hang, and on, and on, and on. But from my – shall we call it my napping chair - I have a clear view out of one of the front windows of my house, so can easily spot changes in the weather, passers-by and anyone feeling the need to approach my front door.
Just in front of the chair, between me and the small upright piano which sits below the window, is an old wooden chest.
The chest is about eighteen inches high, eighteen inches wide and two feet long. It more probably should be described ‘lidded wooden box on castors’, and takes up the central space between the chairs, a sofa and our small black cast iron wood burner.
Inset into the lid of the of the chest - and yes - I will continue to accredit it with the honorary title of being a chest - is a small brass plaque which reads ‘L.Lloyd O.A - MX96369’. Len Lloyd being his name, Ordinance Artificer meaning he held certain engineering skills in his role in the Royal Navy.
This was my father’s toolbox and returned with him following the War. Throughout my childhood years it sat in a corner of our leaky wooden garage, serving to store a few rusty tools, screws, nails and a few other bits and pieces right up until the time my father finally passed away in the late nineties.
There was something about the history of that old box, its shape, its size, its solidness – I don’t know – an attachment that made me want to hold onto the oil stained toolbox after both of my parents had finally passed away. So I spent some time, one spare afternoon cleaning the wood of its years of accumulated dirt and grime, rubbing linseed oil into the wood and repolishing the brass plaque to get it into a state where it would work as a small, if quirky, coffee table for practical use in our front living room.
Fortunately my wife also likes the chest, and we use it to store a small wooden trainset our kids had played with during their early childhood years. The kids have moved on now, but the train set still sits there in its box. No doubt the box will play its part again one day, to be opened this time for the delight of our grandchildren when they finally come along.
There is no more to say really, the chest sits there as it has done throughout the years and hopefully as it will do until it finally passes on to one of our children, the small brass plaque acting as a reminder of the history of a small wooden box.
There is a ceramic pot on my bookcase. It sits on the lefthand corner next to my growing collection of books to be read. It reminds me of the time when making ceramic pieces was integral to my identity.
I began potting, years ago when I was out of work and frankly desperate for direction. It wasn’t a plan as such to take up ceramics. It was mostly a whim based off an old memory of making a pot at a taster class. I walked into the studio unaware of the journey I was about to undertake. It was a journey into discovering a new medium, one that spoke parts of me that I had never been able to sufficiently express with words. It was like coming across an old picture from my childhood and realising that I hadn’t dreamt this image up.
It’s been almost a decade now since I sat in front of a potter’s wheel and I wonder if I’ll ever get back to it. I wonder if my hands will remember how to speak these parts of me. I’m hoping it wasn’t just a phase, a long past season of my life that I’ll keep looking back on. I’m quite sure I’m not the same person who wondered in blindly into the ceramic studio. I try not to dwell on what that means.
Thank you for sharing!
This prompt touches something I’ve been thinking about lately — how the objects we notice aren’t just things, but small mirrors for the weather inside us.
Some mornings it’s the key left on the counter; other days it’s the cup that stays warm long after you’ve set it down.
Attention becomes a form of listening. And once you start listening, the world begins telling the truth you weren’t ready to say aloud.
I love how this prompt invites writers to slow down enough for the objects to speak.
That’s where the real stories usually begin.
I’ve been exploring this idea in my Notes from the Neoverse dispatches, especially the ways attention becomes its own emotional architecture.
This is beautiful!
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