June Renew: Day Twenty
I’ve been getting in the habit of saving the front pages of New York Posts whose editions highlight more of the unprecedented news stories. I began last August with the raid on Mar-a-Lago. I grabbed a couple others from Trump’s now two indictments. And tomorrow I’ll have to grab a Post featuring Hunter Biden’s sweetheart deal on tax and gun charges so everyone can supposedly shut up about him and the Biden family’s shady corruption that still has yet to be brought to light. But I’m editorializing. The point is I’m saving these small snippets of history to remind myself and anyone who reads me in the future of just how extraordinary these times were. And what better way for me to store them than within a piece of my own family’s history; Something passed down to me so that I may one day do the same.
I now own my grandmother’s antique desk. It’s a beautiful piece of chestnut with many deep drawers and claw feet. I swear I can still smell her home when I open the drawers. It was sitting in my parents’ house for years, stuffed full of unknown papers and acting as a catch-all for clean clothes. My dad has been on a kick in wanting to clear out bigger items from the home. He floated the idea of getting rid of the desk and possibly junking it, to which I said, “Don’t you dare.” I had been in the market for a writing desk after getting the Murphy bed, so when I was over their house one time, I suggested the desk come live with me. Two weeks later we paid some movers to bring it in, and now it sits perfectly in my home, a nice set piece for where I can write when the couch no longer serves me.
I’ve put the headlines away in one of the drawers, figuring it’s the best place for them. I can’t remember what my grandmother used this desk for, I think it was a bedroom vanity, but now it’s got a new home and new role for me, and her legacy lives on in my New York apartment. As I was stashing the papers, I thought of what a nice thing it would be to keep passing on the desk to my daughter, or one day (from heaven, maybe) seeing my granddaughter move it into her home too. But then, a worse thought crept in. What if that never happens? What if the desk dies with me? Who am I saving for if not for family? I had an even uglier thought of some unknown guy going through all my stuff after I’ve died alone in my apartment before the crew of cats eat my face off. I hope that never happens, but I have to entertain the headlines regardless.
Preserving and honoring history is becoming even more important as I get older, considering how, down the line, these stories may not ever be told truthfully. All of that remains a possibility. I figure as long as I’m here and I have respect enough to protect it, my new old desk and these headlines still have a fighting chance to be. The stories attached can be told honestly and without fear of getting lost to time. I have to have patience things will somehow pan out, just like seeing all this news happen. People think it’s over? It’s far from over. You think I’ve got no chance to conceive? Watch me house triplets by the end of the year. That’d make some headlines for sure.