Shiny, Pretty Things...

Shiny, Pretty Things…

So I will admit it. I am a Magpie. I collect things; usually anything that catches my eye. Sometimes I collect things without really understanding them. I have had a deck of Tarot cards for so long I can’t even remember when I acquired them. I found them among my mother’s old things, and squirreled them away in my room. My only reason was because they were neat. Big thick cards with blue backs and elaborate pictures on the front. My favorite cards where the ones with labels like ‘The Star’ and ‘The Moon’ and ‘The World’. The suits were different, but much more beautiful. So I would take out the odd fancy cards and play solitaire.
When I was younger, I had a ‘shrine to weirdness’. It was all these random, neat objects I had collected. They were set out in an elaborate display atop my wardrobe. I used my mother’s old textbooks to make tiers; each packed with layer upon layer of my treasures. Some of these treasures were little gifts, others small cheap toys from the quarter machine at the grocery store. Others were school art projects. There were spent brass and bullets, little glass animals, and trolls.
My obsession for such objects is multifaceted. On some levels they were purely superficial, on others the objects were memories, past, present and future. This is not to say that I could give you a story for every object on each or a detailed explanation on why it was there. For some of them, I would shrug and go “because I liked it.”
The walls of my room are in a way the original ‘shrine’, and in time became something of an expansion of it and an extension of me. If it can be tacked, nailed or taped to the wall, it was. In times of boredom, I would find one of my Sharpies and write something on a blank surface. Paint, stickers and ink can all be found under a mosaic of posters, flyers, awards, magazine pages, wrapping paper, ribbons, and fake flowers. There is even a pink plastic praying mantas tacked near the window. Over time the walls became so packed that the any flat surface became targeted. Most of the furniture has been, in some way, marked by my multimedia graffiti. Even the TV has little plastic glow stars stuck to the corners (although I think the PS2 has actually remained untouched).
Even the ceiling has its fair share of adornments. Plastic glow stars (which I prefer to hang on plastic cord rather then stick with gum) and curled ribbons barely obscure the huge five-point star drawn in black Sharpie. At one point in time, I printed out a pile of flying pigs, cut them out and hung them. Origami and small glass stars and moons hung from copper wire. At night, when the lights are turned out, the ceilings main attraction is clear. Swirls of glow from a can of glow spray paint, animal footprints and stars all seem to float in the black. Most of the glow and ribbons remain, but the paper was removed as time destroyed it.
Over the years the collection has expanded and, rarely, been thinned out. A few times I have taken a good majority of the things done and rearranged, but usually only a small section would be altered to refit a change in the furniture. It used to be that by moving the wardrobe I would end up with a whole new chunk of wall. By the time that the wardrobe was finally put to rest, there was only one space left. It was filled by a large chunk of a topographical map of the eastern seaboard.
I think my rooms’ golden age was in late high school, when my collection of random still fit within its confines. Anyone who entered would be shocked and amazed, although a few of my taller visitors were annoyed at having to constantly duck. A moment would have to be taken while they tried to take in all the things and explore. I, myself, would be startled at the blandness of some of their bedrooms. White walls, with maybe a poster or two, a bookshelf, a bed, desk were all they had. So impersonal and, it seemed to me, instead of a sanctuary, the only real privet space they had was used only for function.
Much has been removed over the past few years, what was once displayed in the ‘shrine’ is packed in plastic storage bins. Unfortunately I lost some things when my roof decided to protest the heavy fall rains and sprang a leak in my closet. The area around the closet is still slightly bare. I have not been as quick to put up more things as I hope that I will get to take it all down in a few years. That prospect is daunting to me.
One of my main concerns with the idea of moving my home is how to salvage the spirit of my childhood room, while managing to refine it into a form more pleasing to adult eyes. Unfortunately, some of it will have to be lost. I am hoping that with a little creativity and generous use of poster frames, I can rework most of the significant sections into interesting collages. I will, before I touch anything, take pictures of the entire room in its last and final incarnation, from ceiling down.
A magpie’s nest is a wondrous thing, and mine is no different from others in that regard. Some would dislike the clutter and useless objects. Others may call me things like ‘horder’ and say I am way too attached to junk but that is not what I am. I am perfectly happy to throw out something that I have no use for and no attraction to. What they would call junk, I call memories and pretties and the physical, tangible extension of my mind.