Passion and laundry racks

Life's been a bit tough lately.  And sometimes, at night, I sit there and really wonder what this thing called life is all about.  On the good days I know.  It's about learning and loving - finding out who you really are, loving the ones in your life, adding to the universal understanding of everything, and following one's passion to do that.  But on the really bad nights ... nope, can't find a reason for being here.  (Don't worry, I've never been suicidal - just despondent).

While I was lying in bed this morning, though, as almost always happens after a good night's sleep, I feel better.  The cat is on my chest and throat, licking the side of my face and chewing on my ear.  Snuffing into my ear in such a lovely, intimate way.  He trusts me.  He loves me.  He wants breakfast.  And life is okay.  In the morning it is okay.

So why am I here?  What is that passion that I need to follow?  I have a drive to find and maintain connections to the past.  Always have felt that way - ask one of my closest childhood friends - she got sick and tired of hearing about history.  She just wasn't interested.  But I was, so that is what I do, I connect to the past - mostly to try and understand the present.  And when I forget about that passion, something almost always smacks me across the head to remind me ... sometimes it's in the laundry room ...



This is just a clothes-drying rack.  It might look a little old fashioned.  If you looked really closely, you'd see some tape on a bottom rung.  Some form of fabric tape hat my mother or father possibly put on there because they used to use this.  And before that, I'm sure my grandmother used it.  But it was first used by my Great-Grandmother, Emily Chamberlaine.  She bought it in Armstrong at Shepherd's Hardware (as my father remembers - he remembers a lot of little details) - sometime after 1925, but I'm not sure when.  I know she bought it, because on the side, very faded now, written in pencil, is: "Sold Paid Mrs. Chamberlaine".



It's a little thing.  Just a very quick note written maybe 60-75 years ago to hold this item at a hardware store.  But it means the world to me.  And every time I pay attention, I am reminded of where I come from and what I'm doing here.  

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