the drawer-pulls on my old dresser clattered. they were a little bit fancy and made of brass and i can still hear them in my mind – a repetitive clack-clack-clack when i closed the drawer. it was one of those big six-drawer dressers, wide and low with a big mirror in the middle. it was maybe mahogany and in my growing-up house this girl’s dresser-hand-me-down from my sister sat on my orange and green shag rug before i moved it to my first apartment. it wasn’t grossly oversized but it had plenty of space…places for delicates and t-shirts, jeans and shorts and – astoundingly – nothing was wrinkly when i extracted things from the drawers. i think i remember moving it to florida and then, somewhere along the line, it went back to my sister…this time for her little girl.

ahhh…the joy of having a big dresser should not be underestimated. i haven’t had a dresser with six drawers since.

i think of lois every time i open the dresser i have now owned for almost forty years. when she took a teaching job overseas, she gave me this dresser. is is solid, standardly narrow and upright and has five drawers with giant big wooden knobs and i share it with david. as you might suspect, he gets one drawer and i get four. i would venture to say that you might be shuddering to think of trying to fit all your dresser-stuff into four drawers. (not to mention his in one, but, hey, he’s a boyyy so he has significantly less dresser-drawer stuff.). before you get all judge-y, keep in mind, too, we have old-house-closets. any accumulation of clothing – is a challenge.

we went to a giant antique flea market at a neighboring county fairgrounds. there were over 500 vendors and it was ridiculously fun to wander around, reminiscing and laughing at some pretty weird old stuff, some stuff we still have, some stuff about which we had great stories to tell. as you know, antiquing is one of our favorite pastimes and being outdoors and antiquing together…well, a fine pairing.

when i came across the big bin of knobs, i could actually feel them in my hand without even touching them. they were smooth with history and the hands of all who tugged on them, the wood worn and any finish gone. as i stood there looking at them, i could not help but think of all the cabinets or dressers they graced in all their years. i thought about all the ways they have been replaced – contemporized – and the possibility that the pieces they came from – the chifferobe, the cupboard, the desk – may have been disposed of.

in all the years that i have had my dear friend’s dresser, i have thought many times about painting it, redoing it, replacing it, at the least, re-knobbing. i never did any of that. it’s still the same old dresser.

i can’t imagine how many stories this old dresser has in it. just like the dresser up in my son’s room – a hand-me-down from miss peggy from next door thirty plus years ago – i wonder how old these dressers are.

mostly i wonder about the hands that have touched this old knobs. like all the old doorknobs in our house, i see these as diligent and sturdy; they have done their jobs year after year, decade after decade.

the history just danced in the box in front of me. so much potential. so many drawers and doors. i thought about who might purchase that box of knobs, where the old knobs would end up.

and i was suddenly glad that I hadn’t changed the ones on our dresser.

*****

read david’s thoughts this two-artists-tuesday

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