A short essay

I submitted the following to our local newspaper, the Gazette, for consideration in its "That's Life" column. I don't know if they'll publish it - but maybe someone will read it here on my blog and like it.



Where Oh Where Has My Armoire Been?

by Stephen Brannen (in exactly 500 words)





I have always enjoyed history, its lessons, its stories, its subtle and undeniable effect on daily life. The past is wonderfully intriguing to me, and so, therefore, are things of antiquity.

Whenever I walk into a nice old building, for instance, I wax romantic, wishing I could live in such a wonderfully experienced place with all its secrets, silent memories, and forgotten knowledge. But my house is only about forty years old, and although I love my home, its history is not remarkably deep. So I have taken to romanticizing my furniture.

My wife and I love antique pieces. We have a few of them in our living room, and although for years I ignored their history, largely because I know of no way to research it, a few weeks ago I began thinking about what my furniture’s past might have been.

First I looked at the old armoire we’ve been using as a sort of entertainment center. All I know about it is that it was built by hand some hundred years ago by a craftsman who must have passed away long before I was born. But I wonder what was his story. What events were transpiring in his life while he was working on this piece? He poured his time, attention, skill, heart and personality into its construction a century ago, and now here it stands – right here in my living room in 2008.

I wonder who else has owned this armoire. Did someone hang his uniforms in here after returning from the Great War? Did children, long grown and passed on, play hide and seek in here? Who and where are the great-grandchildren of the young bride who carefully hung her wedding dress from the old wooden dowel?

It may not have sat in the White House or the Waldorf Astoria, but I’m sure my entertainment center has a rich and intricate history. It probably overheard the news of the Wright brothers’ first flight, the Titanic sinking, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the war that followed, the stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, Korea, the Kennedys, Vietnam, and certainly yesterday’s headlines.

The hardy poplar panels have been touched by the hands of people who lived in older, simpler times. Their essence has seeped into the grain along with the dark brown finish, mingling with the oil and dirt from my own hands. In this anonymous way, my family and I are connected to the residents of history.

Who knows where this elegant old closet will eventually go. Maybe it will live on after I’m gone – in the living room of some other hopeless romantic. Maybe he will wonder if an old-fashioned CD player ever sat inside it, piping old-fashioned ambient techno music through its speakers.

It’s humbling, because it makes me realize that I am, after all, just one small link in the long chain of history. But I like my place in the chain, the stories I’m making in it, and the armoire I share it with.