Leftovers...

My son came by this evening. He just recently got remarried and he is in the process of moving out of his bachelor pad and into his wife’s home in a nearby town. He brought back one of my leftovers: a little black desk.

I remember when I got the desk. I was about 8 years old and my Nana sent me the desk and a dressing table. She was downsizing, and they were leftovers.

I was quite excited because they were things that big girls had, not little girls. I especially loved the desk: inside the dropleaf front, there were all sorts of cubbies and little drawers. I planned to put all my treasures inside.

As my daddy was stripping the paint off the desk, in preparation for painting it pink to go in my room, he discovered that it was made from birdseye maple. My mother stepped in and decided that it was “much too nice” for a child’s desk.

And so, I lost my desk.

By the time I was grown up and getting married, I had completely forgotten that the desk was mine. When I moved out of my parents’ home, I left the little desk with the cubbies and drawers behind.

I did take the dressing table. It had always been one of my favorite things in my room. My mother would give me her empty perfume bottles to put on it, and my jewelry box, with the ballerina on top, held pride of place on top.

The drawers were full of girly things: ribbons and clips and junk jewelry inherited from my mother. When I was older, I would set up the sewing machine on top and make all sorts of things.

And somewhere in the seventies, during a bout of stupidity, I sold the dressing table at a garage sale. I guess it was a little too girly for a bedroom shared by a husband and wife.

In the eighties, the desk became a leftover again, when my father remarried and his wife moved in our family home. And so, Daddy decided I was finally old enough to take care of a birdseye maple writing desk. And it came home with me.

Over the years, it has held all sorts of treasures. Letters from faraway places, silver dollars, handmade cards from my children, a fancy letter opener, calligraphy pens, and all sorts of special things.

And then, three years ago, it became a leftover again. My son was living with me, after his divorce, and getting ready to move into his own place. And so, the desk went with him.

Now, as he moves on in his own life, the desk is again a leftover….

Right now, it is sitting in the living room. It isn’t really in the way, which is good, because I am not sure where I am going to put it. Or what I am going to put in it. There is only one thing that I am sure of….

It’s not a leftover anymore!