By Jim Hagarty
2014
A close family member is pretty handy at woodworking. So 20 years ago she spent some time in her father’s workshop and crafted some beautiful items which adorn our home.
One shelf was particularly nice and after being painted blue, was promptly put up in a bathroom where it has served masterfully ever since.
Its little cousin, however, did not fare so well. Painted the same shade of blue, this shelf was a bit smaller but just as ornate. And for some reason, though our house has walls aplenty, it just never found one where it belonged. So, it has spent its life as a drifter, going from shed to garage to basement to shed, never settling for long in any one spot, and always stuck in a corner, never fixed to a wall.
I love this shelf and over the past two decades, it is no exaggeration to say I have picked it up and moved it at least a hundred times. Sometimes I moved it into a room with full intention to put it up, but there was always an excuse not to do it. It seemed like a two-person job and the other person could never be rounded up, or I didn’t have the right screws or I gave in to my deathly fear of trying to find the studs behind the drywall.
But today, that all changed.
I was out in the garage, looking lovingly at the shelf, and actually told it out loud that today would be the day. It was sitting on top of an aquarium which I needed to move and so I did. And as I moved the big tank, I heard a bang and looked down. There lie the shelf in pieces on the concrete floor.
My exact words, at this development, were these: “Oh, good heavens. What on earth have I done?” Or less polite words to that effect.
Mostly ignored all these years, the shelf had spent a lot of its time above the rafters in the shed, where the heat in summer cooked it till it had become like foam. The glue had long ago given up. The biggest thing holding it together was the paint. Tonight I will fix it. And give it the finest location in the house and put our favourite pictures on it. Every shelf deserves another chance to finally serve the purpose for which it was created, no matter how broken and battered.
(Update 2017: The shelf got repaired and was attached to a wall in a downstairs bathroom. It is covered in toiletries and, I assume, is happy at last.)
