A classmate in the girls’ school I attended gave me this castle for my 16th birthday. It took pride of place near my bedroom window. When I got married and moved out, it came along, as did many artifacts of youth, for what is a new marriage but a continuation of that youth?
It occupied a shelf with other decorative objects in my first flat, gathering dust and was ignored, along with most other home objects, with the arrival of the first child.
When the third child arrived, we moved to a bigger apartment, an aerie in the trees on the edge of town. The castle followed, but it was part of a motley crowd of sentimental objects like souvenir carousels bought on vacation in small American seaside towns and snow globes.
I’m moving house again, and with 80 boxes in tow, the castle would be buried in a mountain of what can only be called paraphernalia. Old diaries from 1990, letters written to me when I was studying in small town America, scrapbook photo albums of halcyon days in Santorini. The paraphernalia of my life.
Toss or keep?
Keep, of course. I’m saving these old things, strangely enough, for my future. I will be older then, and these small and lovely things will turn into the most unlikely treasures.
The strength of a castle is in its keep.