Full of Stories

I was standing in front of the double windows of my writing room peering through the glass and into the foggy morning. It was dark, so I reached down to retrieve the box of matches, pulled one out, struck it against the piece of sandpaper on the side of the box and lit a candle in front of me. Between the windows and myself sits what I fondly refer to as the rusted cart and surprisingly, it’s one of my favorite items in my home.

I found it last year during one of my walks. It was sitting by the side of the road on trash day and most would view it as trash, but I saw an item full of stories that still had plenty of life left. It’s made of metal that was painted, but most of the paint has been scraped off of the handles. It holds three trays. One on top, a middle and a bottom, but the bottom tray has more space from the middle than the middle has from the top, so it will hold tall items and it has wheels. Maybe it’s life began in a hospital?

Looking at it you can tell it’s had a rough life, but now it has a peaceful space to nest. I use it’s shelves as storage and most of the items are plant related. There’s a woven straw basket sitting on the middle shelf containing important papers for work, and the top shelf holds whichever plant is longing for more light this week. I’ve pondered many times about painting it, but there’s something so comforting about seeing the rusted shelves, knowing it can easily be made to look new again, but it’s not required.

There’s not one dent that I can see and it still rolls when prompted. After lighting the candle, I lay the extinguished match on the top shelf with no need to worry about harming the finish, or it catching fire. If someone stepped into the room and saw it, they may ask, “Where did you find this piece of junk?”

I’d smile and think to myself, it’s not junk, it’s just been around a long time and not all of it was pretty, but if it could talk, I imagine it’s full of stories.