House 1 : Beaumont

Wikipedia informs me the Beaumont was produced by GM for the Canadian market between 1962 and 1969. Survivors are now collector cars, as most "succumbed" to the harsh Canadian winter.

This beautifully corroded car badge was already affixed to the inside of the cobweb-filled garage when we moved in. It was put there, I am fairly certain, by Mr. A. Renwick, house painter and second owner of our home, two before us. A fellow who grew up in the house across the lane  confirmed my suspicions: Mr. Renwick* owned a Beaumont in the '60s. A brown one.
*The fellow pronounced it "Rennick"

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

The lick of drab, peach-coloured paint under that badge matches the under-sides of the shelves in the linen closet - which comprised about 20% of the total closet space when we moved in. How did people stay organized with so little storage?! Surely they didn't have any less stuff than I have... 

It's not a particularly efficient closet, either: it's shallow and the shelves are poorly spaced. What did the Renwicks keep in there? Not their broom; a broom won't fit. Linen, folded just the right way so the door can close? A dismantled vacuum cleaner, a large box of rags, assorted headlamps, swim goggles, light bulbs, bandaids, syringes, needles*, alcohol swabs, and a spare sharps container?
*Did you know syringes and needles are two different things? Neither did I!

I get a kick out of the weird paraphernalia of my existence - items I'd never heard of, let alone imagined I'd ever own or need: Lycra body socks, Therabands and Chewellery* for intense proprioceptive input. Visual schedules for front-loading and transitions; a cheat sheet on my fridge in case of my own dysregulation; and a checklist on the bulletin board - "30 Good Things About ADHD" - to remind me.
*later replaced by parkour classes

A visual schedule; it's key

The side of my fridge. The grey thing is a juicer key, for all the apples in July.

My son insisted I add the paraphrasing, lower left.

But the weirdest to me is the sharps containers. There is one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, sometimes one on my dresser, a spare or two in the hall closet. Though the novelty of giving my daughter her nightly shot has long worn off, I still marvel at the presence of the yellow boxes of medical waste that decorate my rooms, and at the fact that my superpower turns out to be the ability to give a one-handed injection, in the dark, to a sleeping child - without waking her up. (That, and I'm pretty good at parallel parking.)

Not the elegant, 2-in-1 solution I had envisioned

Whenever I find myself startled at the sight of the severe-looking plastic box with the red biohazard symbol, it crosses my mind that there must be some better way to incorporate it into my decor. But how? It was a eureka moment when I hit upon the idea to disguise it with a toilet roll doll, thereby also solving the perplexing puzzle of how to give one of those seriously useless - but bizarrely appealing - dolls some legitimate function in life. Let's face it, hiding toilet paper doesn't count as useful.

Sadly, the doll won't stand up straight in the wide hole of the sharps box, and it's a pain to lift her dress to get the needle in. Ah well... another idea will surely come. Meanwhile, the box in my kitchen works great for holding garlic.

Just-picked garlic, curing

I would love to invite them for tea - the Renwicks and anybody else who's ever lived here. I'd sort out exactly who sat in my living room, watching Elvis from the waist up, or swooning over the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I want to know about the clothes in the insufficient closets: were there flour sack dresses, followed by utility clothing, then crinolines, then A-line mini dresses and boots made for walking? We can commiserate about our socks, snagged on that nail* in the hallway that keeps poking back up.
*That nail, by the way, is responsible for the demise of many a Phentex slipper, explaining why you will rarely find me in a proper, matching pair - my signature look

They will know to duck going down the basement stairs, and not to park under the tulip trees in summer*. I will thank them for leaving the various, painted nails in the living room - perfectly positioned for birthday streamers, Christmas stockings, and front door wreaths.
*aphid poop

I'll ask what weird things they accumulated, what surprising skills they acquired. I'll learn how Mr. Renwick's Beaumont came to be separated from its badge and how that swipe of closet paint found its way to the wall of the garage. I'll find out where they kept their stuff.

Before the garage collapses completely,
I will extract the Beaumont badge.
I'm thinking chain saw...

July 2015

Garment 3: Exploration #1: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Answer quite slowly

My record player!

I discovered Elvis playing hot potato at Teresa Armstrong's 8th birthday party in 1973, her mother dropping the needle randomly onto that thrilling record to signal us to GO! and doing her best to lift it up again without scratching the vinyl, to STOP! An exciting game for an 8 year-old, but not as exciting as the feeling inside my body when I heard that incredible voice.

I returned home to enthusiastically tell my mom about the new singer I'd just discovered. Turns out, she had been just as excited to discover him, years before. A few months ago I watched my 7 year-old daughter dance around the living room, clutching an old vinyl copy of Blue Hawaii, and squealing, "He's so sexy!" The apples didn't fall far from this fuzzy tree. She, too, was all shook up.

That Christmas I received three Elvis albums. I played them continuously on my plastic Sears Wish Book stereo, writing out the lyrics to the songs as fast as I could. Later, my first CD purchase was a box set of Elvis' complete '50s catalogue. I didn't even own a CD player yet.

The Beatles I discovered over the course of decades. The first of their songs to transfix me was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". For a period of months in 1980, I repeatedly pencilled the opening line on the surface of my desk in Mr. Humphrey's Social Studies classroom. I was in grade 10. "Picture yourself in a boat on a river..." And she's gone.

Julian Lennon's drawing, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

John Lennon was inspired to write the song when his son returned home from preschool with a drawing he had made of his friend, Lucy. She was in the sky. With diamonds. I, myself, have a painting by my son entitled Vase of Crud and Stuff. There could be a song in there, I suppose, or certainly a garment made of abandoned materials.

Inspiration can come from anywhere. When it does, it is simply a matter of shutting up and letting it come, flowing from the universe through the mind and right down to the earth. I think this is what I responded to as I slouched in my seat, doodling Lucy. That pure, channelled song has been stuck in my head now for 35 years. So has "The Lonely Goatherd", though that one I'm not so sure about.

Back

This top is my homage to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". The first of two identical metallic blue/brown tunics made of hand-me-down fabric, it features extended shoulders, French darts, French seams, bias trimmed hems and a draped collar with a mind of its own. My very first felting project, I spent 8 blissful hours stuffing the roving fibres through from the front to the wrong side to anchor the loose, discarded threads and serger dregs that make up the lettering. When it was over I ran machine stitching along it once or twice, to make sure it wasn't going anywhere. Guess what I was listening to...

I hope the blue will become crumbly and faded-looking, and the brown will show through the cracks even more. Though the fabric is pre-shrunken, washing gently will preserve the felting.

Answer quite slowly. Or, shut up brain, I'm trying to listen!

Size M. For sale by appointment. Enquiries at enoughstuffblog@gmail.com

Good photography by Jeff Minuk www.lostinkits.com