As the holiday decorations came out of the box, I realized that we would need to make a video. Kwami is embracing my wish to have the stories of the “junk” travel with the junk.
The shelves are also covered with memories, creations, and memorabilia. Some of it is junk. But some of it oozes with historical meaning and nostalgia. The beauty of the identification. The joy of sorting.
I think I am identifying trash from treasures, at least from the order of my mind. It can all be trash once I am gone. Trust me, I will not care. But I do own a lot of things that are about “how they look and feel,” that have no other purpose than my joy. It isn’t a bad thing. Joy is a wonderful thing, and it is my theme for December. Joy is hiding, super close to the surface actually. It hasn’t been difficult to unearth.
Will I actually separate ornaments and talk about them, say what they mean to me? There are some that are extremely special. Nyasha and Shante both have clay hand-prints, created by well meaning parents, upside down (why?), by the Kindergarten classes at Mountain Way Elementary.
There are so many homemade embellishments on the tree. Many were not made in innocent years. So there are bells and stuffed gingerbread men, but also hotty hooker ornaments and a penis created by Andrew out of old fashioned wooden clothes pins. There are intricate, hand painted soldiers, beaded wreaths and bell strands, carefully crafted by Rosanna and Karolynne and a whole host of others.
The ornaments are beauty (hmm, maybe not the penis, but it IS creativity). Our fake tree is alive!
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