Nick Nacks | Flash Post 461!
Meaning inconsequential! Small and worthless objects! Is that what nick nack means?
Button, not inconsequential for me and, yes, some are small, some big and of worth to me! I love collecting boxes, big and small, bottles of weird shapes and sizes, paper bags, jars, you name it…
You’ve got quite a collection, I’ve noticed. There’s that shelf in the larder where some of them are displayed. What do you eventually do with them?
First and foremost, I collect them because they are pretty and, some, maybe one of a kind. If I ever want to send something small—food or otherwise—to a sibling or a friend and am looking for something pretty to pack them in, the first place I go to is this shelf from where I choose something I can use for this purpose and, I must say, I have not been disappointed! When gifts are sent home on festive occasions, you’ll see my eyes take in not so much at what is inside the container but the container itself! And I’m very happy to give away the contents so I can add that jar or box or bottle to my collection! Paper bags that are designed extraordinarily catches my eye and will invariably find a place somewhere on that shelf!
Has that habit of collecting boxes, bottles, jars, etc, branched out where you collect other interesting stuff as well? Was it Dubai where Dost and you travelled to where you found that spoon with a hole in the centre and wrote a post on it?
You’re right. And I have the spoon on the shelf in the larder!
What more do you have in that treasure trove of yours?
There’s a particular bottle that’s square and fitted with a cork cap with floral designs as well as a copper tiffin carrier that’s chic and stunning to look at. Old ink bottles from my time because there were no ball-tipped pens then and we wrote with nibbed fountain pens after filling them up with ink. I also have a couple of circular glass paper weights with gold dust inside them!
Dost also collects a lot of antiques and stuff!
He’s actually a hoarder if you ask me. The whole idea of de-cluttering puts him off! He adores clutter!
So what’s the latest piece de resistance you’ve put out there?
A decanter you must see to believe. Its neck is slim like Nefertiti and she’s gorgeous.
I also have an exquisite envelope opener made of copper from The Times of India that must be a hundred years old. An old hand-fan which an uncle of mine had brought back from one of his trips is something I treasure.
That’s impressive.
While collecting these objects is something I enjoy, my mother used to collect a thing or two which she could actually use on a regular basis. A wooden box with a cover that slid in and out on channels someone had given her was used as a sewing box in which she kept sewing items like needles and thread and old buttons she could reuse. Old bottles were used as masala jars. My mother-in-law had a similar box inside which her sewing paraphernalia were kept.
This whole idea of clutter is passé now. I remember the book Mary Kondo wrote about how you can tidy up your house and compartmentalise everything from clothes to footwear to kitchen items and live a life free of clutter!
Button, on the other hand, clutter is reminiscent of memories. My kitchen, for instance, continues to have certain items that my mother used in her kitchen in her time and I refuse to throw them away. I possess several of the crocheted frills my mother-in-law knitted when she moved from Kolkata to come and live with us at 80. Another smaller box she stored sewing needles in remain rust-free because she had sprinkled talcum powder inside. A musical box that we carried back for her when Dost and I travelled to Greece continues to play the Samba after she’s wound. How do you throw away memories to de-clutter your space?
There are two sides of a coin and you don’t need to give up one for the other. And here’s more strength to your collection of bottle and boxes and decanters et all.
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