Every day for a couple of weeks now, the setting sun warms the back half of our home with a flush of gold. Briefly, it’s as if we live in a jar of honey; I find myself awestruck by the spectacle. The dish soap looks like something from an oil painting, sentimental. The clutter appears beautifully still, suddenly quiet.
Our things come alive, leveled in importance by a glow that christens, for instance, a discarded tin kazoo atop a stack of mail, or a dollar store Batman figurine propped against the fruit bowl. I remember watching the wooden nose of a Pinocchio doll (we have a collection) grow before my very eyes as the sun slipped behind a cloud. Cartoon eyes proliferate, googly and abundant; a fluffy tail pokes out from beneath a cushion; a lone puzzle piece drifts aimlessly, free of context.
I have grown accustomed to my son’s little testimonies of play and chaos, like his “bad guys” (Cruella, Scar, Gaston), his sculptures (two rocks and a Lego brick balanced on a Brio train), or his “caves” (anything inside of anything else). I’ve found myself, as time passes, prone to how they slow my day, easing off the edges. How their fanciful scale—the smallness of a doll’s brush or a cluster of colorful dice sitting on our bookshelf-reorders my urgencies.
Imagine being late for something, only to find a Moomin troll in your shoe. Imagine lifting the lid of a saucepan and discovering that it’s already occupied by an ear of plastic corn and a plush watermelon. Imagine arriving home after a long day and encountering a barricade: three toilet paper rolls taped to a broom handle and balanced across your hallway. “Climb under! Quick! Or else they’ll get you!” They who? It doesn’t matter.
Most of all, my son’s trail of things has created a secondary world that lives alongside mine. If my preoccupations seem pressing, his are sprawling—well beyond the practical, plumbing depths I’m not meant to understand. These are his altars: his love of stones, his pile of Paw Patrol, his baskets filled with “soup.” That’s his shoehorn (which he often sleeps with), his crown (anything he puts on his head).
There are phases when he carries his metal harmonica with him for hours, toasty in his palm. When he is at daycare, I catch myself placing it near our front door so he can grab it first thing. The harmonica feels a little lifeless, cool to the touch, anticipating his return. That’s what I love most about my son’s stuff. It waits around for him.
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