Saturday morning found me at home, merrily minding my own business, getting assorted household chores done. When it came time to vacuum, I opened my amazing walk-in hall closet (one of my favorite things about this house) and reached for the Oreck, only it was stuck behind something, and, in an effort to free it, I not only knocked something off of a shelf, but it landed squarely on my big toe. Ouch! That really hurt!
I started to just close the door and walk away (vacuuming could wait), but I realized it was past time to do the mature thing—clean out the closet! About once a year, it comes to this. (Can anyone else relate?)
So ... after bringing in some boxes from the garage, I proceeded trying to choose what would go and what would stay. And therein lay my downfall. Decisions, decisions. I know my attic is a museum waiting to happen, but I’d forgotten what a little pack-rat I’d become on other fronts. Like this hall closet, for starters.
Here it is Sunday evening, and I'm still wading through piles of stuff, sorting, deciding, murmuring and, more than once, coming close to gnashing of teeth. You see, here’s the deal. The longer you keep something, the harder it becomes to part with it—sentimental things, I mean. The sentimental value only increases as the years go by. That’s one reason I haven’t tackled the attic yet. I know what’s up there—almost everything my daughter ever wore as a baby and toddler, including all of her shoes until she started Kindergarten. And then there is almost every toy she ever owned, including bikes and trikes and Little Tikes, not to mention all of the Barbie paraphernalia. See?
But back to the hall closet. One of the most interesting things I discovered in my two-day excavation was what a busy bee I was in my teenage years.
Just when you thought my talents had been exhausted, would you believe I used to be quite the little artist? Sketching. Painting. I wasn’t all that, but when I uncovered what might be enough sketches to fill a small gallery, I spent a few minutes remembering what it was like to be so, so young. Some of the memories made me laugh (out loud), while others, not so much. But they're all my personal truths, and I embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly.
In the end, I opted to stash away the artwork of my youth for another year ... or two. My reasoning? It isn’t taking up much space. (Does that count?)
That said, and if anyone is still actually reading this, would you like to see some of my artwork? I thought you might. (hehe ... not!) My sketches were done either from a photo or, on occasion, freehanded. The earliest ones are dated 1969 (still wet behind the ears, I was), and the latest are from 1975, which seemed to be my busiest and final year of sketching.
Let the show begin!
This is a sketch I did of my mother, from one of her photographs as a child.
Did I mention water colors? Hello!
Did I mention oil painting? Hello! (My mother really loves me. I know because when I gave her this trio of paintings, she hung them above the piano for several years straight. Nothing like a mother's love.)
And just when you thought you'd seen it all, I even painted a piece of driftwood. In 1974, I went to a flea market in Mississippi and found a booth selling just plain old driftwood pieces from the coast. I bought this piece, then painted a little Southern landscape on it, complete with a white picket fence. It hasn't hung on my walls in many a moon, yet I can't seem to part with it, so back into the closet it went.
And there you have the "Dayle Collection." If all goes as planned, I will show you more stuff from behind the closet door in a later post. (Think Tammy dolls and GI Joes.) Until then, I've still got a pile of stuff to sift through.
