little things

my mother is getting rid of things

in the process, she has been giving some of them to me to sell on eBay

and some to keep

these were Mammy's

I remember them sitting on her desk in the bedroom of the house that served as what we would call an office now days -- her desk was there in the corner, and the sewing machine was right next to it on the same wall

the sewing machine that I learned to sew on in the table that Pappy built for it

there was just enough room to scoot your chair back then there were boxes of items stacked behind -- they didn't have a basement, that room held the trunk with her childhood doll in it (and a lot more, I just don't really remember what)

its officially summer, and there is something about summer that makes me think about Mammy and Pappy

maybe it is because I spent so many summer days with them as a child --

the garden with the corn and okra

the smell of starch and hot cotton when the ironing was being done

the sound of the sprinkler running in the yard and the fan running in the house

the hot concrete of the sidewalks and the cool tickle of the grass on my bare feet

I recognize now the work that summer was -- I am now the age that Mammy was when I was four years old -- I see her in my mind that way, and I marvel that I am now that old and still feel in ways like I am four

yes, it is the little things -- Mammy collected those little vases -- and I had forgotten about them until my mother pulled them out of a box of dishes

and they go well with a collection of little vases I've gathered on my own

full circle