Pegboard

First comes the intention.

The place on the wall that will eat up two junk drawers and a broken toolbox. The stuff squirreled away in closets that we keep forgetting we have. The desire to make our home neater, lovelier better. To make ourselves all of these things, too. 

The measuring tape binds us to what can and can never be. We have this much wall space and no more. A hardware store smelling of wood grain and eggshell paint. A slab of hope and ambition in the form of plywood with almost infinite numbers of  tiny holes. A choice not to paint our cut-to-order purchase. A pegboard allowed to be itself.

A level. A drill dusted off and loudly employed. Hardware in five different sizes lined up and waiting. Minimalism will soon become a jumble of sizes, colors, patinas, new, and well-used. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

One by one, we examine what used to live in the dark. Most things go up easily. Like with like, clustered together in more or less sensical fashion. 

One item remains. It won’t hang from a neat loop, it won’t balance between two hooks. It’s too big, unweildly, irregular. It’s not useful. It doesn’t match the array on the pegboard, nor does it belong with anything else. We’d throw it away, but neither one of us can bring ourselves to do it. The reasons are too numerous and complicated to go into now.

Alone on a shelf, unhoused, singleton.
Trash or jewel, not everything fits. 

From the archives:
Five Minutes
Picture Edit
The very second you lost me