collecting the nest

I nest. Ever since I left home for college, my domestic space (however cramped it sometimes was) represented a sort of chamber of curiosities in which I collected various artifacts (and at least one Cat) that for me represented a key element to the narrative of my sense of self. However diverse, the items that are collected in and represent my home speak to a distinct sense of identity I have been constructing over the years. I have stacks of old photos of families, men, and women from the early 21st century, I have acquired at antique stores throughout Washington. Many of the first photos I collected, interestingly enough, I purchased from what was once the Antique shop that occupied the building where I now live. Little did I know then, riffling through stacks of photos of ghosts, and other's memories that the spirit of my future lay waiting upstairs. But this is leading away from my main focus. I've collected stacks of old photo's- photos of strangers that now haunt my rooms, dreams and writing with startling clarity. I've also begun to collect the photographs of my family from day before I was even a thought, let alone a possibility. Alongside the strange images the stare without recognition at me from sepia and fading black and white, are pictures of my mother as a baby, a young girl, and bride; pictures of my father in a pram in South Hampton, preparing to pick my mom up for the prom, and leaned out outside his first car- an atrociously green VW bug. My youthful grandparents are also present- their earliest photos of a kind with those strange pictures of unknown faces. For me, these photos have a largely aesthetic quality that makes them so alluring. So gorgeous and necessary as collections in the gallery of my home. But they also have an emotional quality, I can't quite pin down. They evoke in me a sense of romance, of eerie disconnection, of wonder, and passion. They are beautiful, and evoke a strong sort of sense of desire in me. Everything in my home does- all my various collections are united by this feeling. Whether it's the collection of graphic designed and silk-screened posters, the strangely alluring photographs of goddess-like women I have to cut from magazines, have to keep, however cloistered in the curious little gallery of my journal. Even my assemblage of audacious dresses and shoes, hung up or set out like works of art on display represent component collections in a "nest" that is I feel invigorated with a sensation of passion, sensuousness and inspiration. I care little for furniture, and indeed my home is fairly minimally furnished. It is my collections that fill the space. It is my collections that give certain electricity to the air. It is my collections and their collective force in my home that reinforces the narrative of identity I have been writing for myself since I achieved the space and freedom to excavate my self from myself. I am not sure I can quite put into words what all these things together are meant to say specifically about me- perhaps that I conceive of myself as somewhat creative, sensual, expressive, and perhaps like my home- all of these things kept inside the walls of my flesh. In some ways through my collections and place in my domestic space, my home represents to me a very visceral image of my self, full up of all these colors, lights, and intention- all this passion- all this wondering- all these ghosts- all this yearning for beauty (and for embodying beauty) and somewhat contained within walls....well, at least somewhat contained :).