Call Me Nana

Some days I am inspired to write about something in particular, and after deciding upon a topic, I go in search of a picture to complement my piece. Other days I feel a bit more lost and I either turn to my folders of pictures for ideas or I simply look around and take in my surroundings. A few nights ago, I snapped a picture of a small wind up music figurine, a little French clown or pierrot I believe it is named. It sits on my bedroom blanket chest. A poster of another pierrot is framed in my master bathroom. It's a classic poster of a clown holding a rose. She has one small tear about to fall from her eye. The items were in the master bedroom of my first apartment and I remember there were two little dolls with porcelain heads that I had perched on a bureau in there too.

My tastes in decor have certainly changed. I have long lost the little clown dolls and almost every time I go in my bathroom, I look at that poster and think, "What is that still doing hanging on my wall?!" But since the master bathroom is a project for another day, it remains.

I can think of several changes I have made to my home's decor. I would not go so far as to say that I make constant changes but I have switched around the furniture layout from time to time, I've torn up wall to wall carpeting and replaced it with hardwood, and several years ago I took down another collection of figurines that I began collecting in the late 80s, a set of Precious Moments collectibles that I originally had thought I wanted to house in a curio cabinet. I would not want one in my house nowadays and those poor Precious Moments figures are now spending their days in the deep bottom drawer of my dining room empire chest, a piece my husband and I excitedly found at an antique store two summers ago.

Some of my preferences have remained the same. I still love Shaker furniture and I adore my simple dining room table and chairs as well as the clean lines of my Shaker four poster bed and matching bedroom bureau. I treasure the sentimentality of other furniture pieces such as my Nana's blonde mahogany furniture that my girls have in their bedroom, or my Mom's hope chest which has a prominent place in my living room.

My parents call me "Nana" at times when they notice I have changed my home's decor or have moved the furniture around. My Mom tells me Nana, her Mom, used to switch her home's layout around too and Mom used to stub her toes at times when she'd come into a room without first switching on a lamp. Perhaps that's why my Mom is my opposite, opting to change her rooms very minimally over the years.

But all in all, I think change is healthy. I'll continue to keep my treasured pieces but I'll make room for the new when I so desire. Something tells me I'll be donating the pierrot poster in my master bathroom next summer when I take on that redecorating project. But I'm pretty sure the little music figurine will always have a home here with me, for it reminds me of where I've been, who I was, and what I loved. And if I'm wrong and I decide I don't need that object to remind me of such things, I'm sure the Precious Moments figurines will welcome its arrival in the deep drawer of the empire chest that they call home.