Oh So Many

I’m not certain why, (perhaps the night is becoming darker or the wind stronger) but I am somehow compelled to recount this banal minutia.

I have an addiction that began in early childhood.

I treasure paper clips, and other mundane items that belong quietly hidden in dark desk drawers.

Perhaps this affliction goes back to early childhood when I inherited the remnants of my Dad’s deserted NYC office that sadly sank into bankruptcy when the stock market crashed,

As a five year old I had a standard Underwood typewriter, stapler, and voluminous sheets of blank paper along with an adding machine.

The collection resided in a small roll top desk in the large kitchen of our crowded tenement, and it was there I spent most of my childhood waking hours.

I soon learned not to miss having friends because I had my dependable desk to welcome me whenever I arrived home from school.

Later of course I added library books, but the real comfort came from the voluminous collection of clips, large, small and multi colored.

As I aged, many things changed.

Obviously my girth no longer fit comfortably behind the miniature wooden desk.

Consequently, during those early adolescent years when I no longer utilized the small wooden chair it was quickly sent into oblivion via the sturdy dumbwaiter.

However, although the kitchen became increasingly crowded with the arrival of not one but two sisters, for some reason the desk never departed.

As I recall, it was still there the day I left for marriage and another life.

The October morning I departed (reluctantly having abandoned a vast collection of not only paper clips but odds and ends of other absolutely non essential paraphernalia,) I immediately realized I must replace my carefully hoarded treasures eventually in the days to come.

I did exactly that meticulously during the years that followed.

Today I am now the grateful possessor of another small desk filled to the brim and overloaded with almost all of the remnants of yesterday’s nonessential possessions.

Of course, the true treasure, who will ever remain, was my soul friend who never questioned my many eccentricities, or wondered why?

And never forgot to bring me more paper clips and oh, so many other things.