there are several smells that i associate with childhood. one is the combined aroma of broccoli and chicken that vented from the kitchen of my childhood home into the northern territory of our driveway basketball court. another is the “house smell,” of my friend lauren’s home that was two doors down from ours. this was not a bad smell, mind you. just a distinct smell. but perhaps the most jarring smell to my young nose was the ever-present odor of turpentine and other chemicals used to strip grime, paint, and varnish from old furniture.

i have visions of my parents working all day on a saturday to convert a cheap, ugly dining room table into an attractive gathering place for many thanksgiving and christmas dinners. i have memories of my dad walking without embarrassment from a neighbor’s trash pile with a rolled up rug over his shoulder. my parents’ garage, until a few years ago, was home to all manor of cool pine furniture and even a crystal chandelier, costing my family a sum total of zero dollars. all this is to say that i come from a long line of scavengers and makeshifters. we are proud (and even a little giddy) to be at the bottom of the furniture chain.

there is nothing that i enjoy more than discovering a perfectly lovely piece of furniture by the side of the road, schlepping it home (with the help of my very patient husband), and spending the next few days making it beautiful and interesting. the kids are now in on the hunt as they twist around in their carseats to peer down side streets. on friday, for example, the monkey made the mistake of saying, “look mommy, a treasure!” i stopped the car, flexed my muscles, hoisted this future headboard (old door) into the CRV, and off we went.

the kids and i stayed too late at barbecue fest just the night before, and though we were hurrying home to bed, we stopped for 45 minutes at the sight of this:

even though the kids were cheering me on as i tried to hoist this bad boy into the too-small trunk, my friend susan had to be called in for this job. thanks susan! with just a little sanding and waxing, the wood is now shiny and smooth, and the white paint circle (see above) is gone!

spring treasure season opened this year with a chest of drawers that i spotted while i was on a long run in east memphis. it took our entire family to load this 1950’s nursery centerpiece into andy’s suberu outback. andy removed his belt and used it to “secure” the furniture for a very tedious and risky 20-minute ride home. i wish i had a picture of the pre-makeover ugliness. you will have to use your imagination to envision the tarnished brass handles, the formica top, the off-white grungy glaze, and the cracked peeling lattice that was glued to the top drawers. but here she is in her current state:

until we can figure out exactly what to do with all of this stuff, the ever-patient andy has lost his parking space in the garage. this is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for the thrill of the hunt and the hilarity of my children’s participation in the search and fix up processes. who knows, we might just land a crystal chandelier to live amongst our tools, gardening equipment, and tricycles. then we really will have a treasure island!

last fall marked the time when both of my friend virginia’s children were old enough to go to school all day. this milestone brings about relief for some and grief for others. in virginia’s case, there was probably a bit of both. but what i noticed from the outside looking in was that virginia wasted no time channeling energy into her vocation. there didn’t seem to be a transition period or a need to brainstorm about how new pockets of time could best be spent. she just seemed to know what to do. “i feel like a new person,” she said.

i am a few years away from the days of two o’clock carpool but i find myself looking upon virginia’s vocational clarity and renewed sense of identity with envy. i am so often caught up in the whirlwind of parenting small children that i forget to imagine other scenarios. a few weeks ago, my therapist asked me to brainstorm about what kinds of things i would do if  there were no limits of income, time, space, stage of life, et cetera. i sat in silence for a full five minutes before i managed to mumble something about a yoga retreat in some sort of tropical paradise. then came the barrage of questions. “would you preach? would you teach? would you counsel? would you write?” to all of these i answered, “i don’t know.”

a few days later, in an attempt to boost my fun-quotient in light of the monkey’s recent daddy stage, i engaged my four-year-old in a rainy day collage-making activity. we each had a piece of poster board and a stack of magazines, and we spent the better part of two hours cutting out images and arranging them to our liking. while the monkey was busy cutting out smiley faces, i was having an internal debate with myself. i resisted cutting out yoga journal phrases such as “live in the moment,” and other notions to which i should subscribe. instead, i created a collage of things that truly excited or described me.

two weeks later, i still become giddy when i look at this mix of cool place settings, fabulous red hair, outdoor vistas, colorful throw pillows, funky stockings and shoes, and most of all, modern rugs and furniture. is it sad that the most vivid alternate reality i can conjure up is one where white home decor would not quickly fall victim to tracked-in mud and yogurt-covered fingers? despite the embarassingly material nature of my longings, i had such fun creating this little two-dimensional world. as i was cutting and pasting, there was a part of me that woke up from a deep, monolithic mom trance. and as silly as it sounds, i think that same part of me, when pressed for deeper revelation, could potentially lead me beyond the world of lime green chaise lounges and into a new season.

i plan on making more collages. who knows what wildness will emerge from the silence? who cares how irrelevent those two-dimentional windows into my soul may seem? i want to cultivate the kind of imagination that will help me feel, as virginia describes, “like a new person” with each passing phase.