Antiques and Incense
It all started when I was sixteen. My sister and I had had a party. You know the kind that teens have when their parents aren't home. It was a great party, but like all great things, it ended. My single working Mother was due home and we had the after party may lie to deal with. My sister set herself to the kitchen, and I walked around with a trash bag and other toxic disposal tools. I needed to mask the smell of beer and cigarettes and pot. So, I burned one of those cone shaped incenses. My sister was washing the ash trays so I just set the burning incense down on the table.
This was my mother's cherry wood, gate leg antique table. It was over 200 years old with the original finish. My mother was proud to tell the story of the table, how it was hand crafted by a pioneer for his family. She really loved that piece of history sitting in our living room.
We didn't have much time before Mom would be home. Of course, I forgot about the incense. It burned down into the wood, a fingertip sized hole. I put the tip of my finger into the still warm wood. I felt flooding terror. There was no fire. The great tragedy of a big fire would have masked my sin. But sadly, I was to face my mother's full wrath. In a full state of panic, I attempted to hide the burn with a lamp. Unfortunately, the hole was on the edge of the table. When Mom came home, one of the first things that she did was to move that lamp away from the edge of the table. I'll never forget how bad I felt that day.
I moved out when I was nineteen. I didn't see my family or that table for many years. An estrangement of my own making gave me a feeling of disassociation. It seemed that the child I vaguely remembered and the half adult that I had become were of two different worlds, the former being like a late night movie, promising insight but delivering only broken shards of memory. The latter was uncertain and scared.
Years came and went. I grew and matured, coming to realize that I needed to connect with my family, I decided to reach out. I took a deep breath and with trembling fingers, I called my Mother. Fear turned to curiosity as we talked. Over the next few months, we became friends, and today we are again mother and daughter. We don't get to see as much of each other as we would like because we live in different parts of the country, but we speak often.
When I came to visit for the first time after the estrangement, I wasn't sure what to expect. Just the fact that she wanted me to come was amazing. When I entered her house, it was surreal. My heart was in my throat. My discomfort took me wandering through her house, searching for a symbol, for some memento to validate my identity. I guess that I needed to somehow connect the past with the present. At first, nothing seemed familiar. Then some things looked like things I might remember. Then, across the room, I spied the table. It was masked with brick-a-back, but it was the same table that I had burned a hole in all those years ago. I was almost certain of it, but I had to know for sure.
. Sometimes your eyes can play tricks on you. I knew that I had to put my finger into the hole. It was the only way of knowing for sure if my childhood was mine, or if it was just some late night movie that I watched once. My weak and fearful heart kept asking me not to know. But what if the hole wasn't there? What if my entire childhood was a late night movie? What would become of me then?
With heart pounding and blood surging, I reached out my trembling finger. It searched along the edge of the table scarf, afraid to go farther, but unable to stop. Then quite suddenly there came a purchase and the sought for reward was received. I found the hole. It was there. My childhood was real. I had been in this place before. I had an identity.
With this new insight, I was armed and ready to begin a new life as a whole human being. By linking the past and the present, I found a special sort of validation. I found my place in society, as well as in my family. I was not a stranger, but a member with rites. I now owned the past, the present and apparently the table.
That table now sits in my house. It serves as a reminder that sometimes, you can go home again. And always, if you can, you should.