Apologies for the silence! School vacation week and all ... normal routine out the window.
I was sitting at my desk a moment ago, moved the paper on which I had been writing my to-do list for tomorrow (a week with no to-do list - undreamed-of luxury!), and saw the marks of my writing in the desk. Most people would gasp in dismay. I was pretty pleased with it, and spent another couple of minutes looking over my desk at all the other marks.
I love my desk. We bought it at an antique store in New Hampshire the first summer we lived in New England. It's just a big wooden slab sitting on top of a trestle base, and has always looked like it was well-used. Over the past decade, many more marks have been etched into its surface, and it looks like an old piece of furniture. But it's useful, beautiful, big enough for all my stuff, and since it is a well-used old piece of furniture, I'm very happy to have it look that way. I've never understood this desire to "antique" new furniture, and "refurbish" old furniture. I want my new things to look new, while gradually adding the scratches and other bits of character that make them loved pieces of the household landscape, and my old things to look old - they've earned it.
Some day, someone's going to get my desk and start looking at the white marks in the wood that spell out part of today's to-do list, and wonder what the heck I was thinking. Hopefully, if they decide to refinish it and eradicate the marks of my presence, I won't be around to know about it.
I was sitting at my desk a moment ago, moved the paper on which I had been writing my to-do list for tomorrow (a week with no to-do list - undreamed-of luxury!), and saw the marks of my writing in the desk. Most people would gasp in dismay. I was pretty pleased with it, and spent another couple of minutes looking over my desk at all the other marks.
I love my desk. We bought it at an antique store in New Hampshire the first summer we lived in New England. It's just a big wooden slab sitting on top of a trestle base, and has always looked like it was well-used. Over the past decade, many more marks have been etched into its surface, and it looks like an old piece of furniture. But it's useful, beautiful, big enough for all my stuff, and since it is a well-used old piece of furniture, I'm very happy to have it look that way. I've never understood this desire to "antique" new furniture, and "refurbish" old furniture. I want my new things to look new, while gradually adding the scratches and other bits of character that make them loved pieces of the household landscape, and my old things to look old - they've earned it.
Some day, someone's going to get my desk and start looking at the white marks in the wood that spell out part of today's to-do list, and wonder what the heck I was thinking. Hopefully, if they decide to refinish it and eradicate the marks of my presence, I won't be around to know about it.
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