Peculiar Girl and Snow

The snowflake lingered on Stay's outstretched hand. It didn't melt upon contact, turning into a regular drop of water to be collected in a minuscule vial and placed on her shelf of rain. It remained full and intact. A tiny, delicate cut of the world, a piece of shattered cloud fallen merrily to her hand. Stay had been outside in the snow for hours, cooling her hands for just this.

The icy design sat on a knuckle. The flake was a cathedral of ice, filled with spires and dancing light - a thing to pray to. another flake joined it, this one more rounded, with delicate cut-out pieces and swooping lines from point to point. The flakes faded. They could not last forever on her skin that insisted on being warm for short bursts of time.

No matter how long Stay stood outside, surrounded by sugared trees and bushes caked in ice, no mater where she stood, whether by the lake as it creaked under the pressure of heaps upon heaps of snow, luxurious and soft, or standing on the roof of her house, slick like an ice slide seducing her to her doom, she could not become or remain cold enough. She remained strong and steadfast, standing tall and sure either at the edge of the ice on the roof or at the lake. But neither place made a difference. Her blood would take the tiny sting, as the flakes landed, away. She would always enjoy it from afar, the snow, dusting the world in a haze of melted lines and cold calm.

Cold and calm. That is how the snow made Stay feel. She preferred the cold. To let the warmth from her blood leech out into the dry air like a wet huff, an exhalation of glorious remorse. She could stand, still as an ice sculpture, as the world pushed down from all sides.The cold took it all away, in a hush of white-noise. Every time it snowed she stepped out into it and it fell on her like a hug. A hug from a friend she always looked forward to seeing.

© Ash Huntley 12/2013

Christmas Update!

Want to see some more Christmas stuff?

My favorite Japanese vintage reindeer - My other vintage reindeer

A great vintage bell with silver leaves, red bauble corsage and the red mercury glass spiky things

Vintage bottle brush wreath

Adorable vintage salt and pepper shakers, yes the bench came with it and they do come off. And, some of my bottle brush trees (notice the red bases)

My winter girls!

Blurry picture. Newest vintage bottle brush tree, and my largest! Also, two new (vintage) tins I acquired this year.

Adorable vintage cracker jack boxes. I got the bottom one last year and the top one this year.

Animal/woodland type setup. Fox from Target, some TY Christmas toys, a moose my brother gave me when I was a kid, a penguin snowglobe on the left from my best friend, and a cross stitch Santa hanging in the middle, my mother made in the 80s.

Re-did some of the stuff. Hello Kitty and beaded bells now on top of a vintage Hudson's Christmas box, from Detroit. Look at how beautiful!

British Jim Shore Santa

Two more Jim Shore Santas. Tea on the right, and an ornament one on the left (also some vintage corsages, mercury glass in a belljar and S&P shaker)

Most of my vintage Japanese Putz houses. I added a few bottle brush trees and a tiny Mr. and Mrs. Clause ice skating!

Vintage feather tree and three vintage star tree toppers, along with a glass one on the red tree

One close up of the tree, as a teaser.

Of course, there's more to come. More shots of the special ornaments on the tree. Set up of certain lights. And my collection of garlands which I started putting up today! three are up, and at least two to go.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Hope if anyone is out there looking at this, they enjoyed it! I'd love to know the kind of decorations everyone else is doing. I have a wide variety of tastes and I like just about everything, which I'm sure you can tell!

Vintage, Kitschy, Kawaii Christmas!

I thought I would start sharing some of my Christmas decorations!

It's not done yet, but I took a few pictures and I would like to share. As surprising as it may be, having it all cheerful and cute and happy is inspiring! A lot of my stuff has darker tones. With Peculiar Girl, I try to do a lot of senses, and what has more HELLO THERE senses, than Christmas?!

 

I'll tell you what there is! Picture of Husband and I from 2008, I think. Vintage beaded Christmas bells, Hello Kitty Christmas house toy, Hello Kitty TY and a Momiji Doll - A Christmas carol. My family calls me their Christmas carol, hehe. 

(Then there are some Harry Potter and LOTR/Hobbit legos and POP toy. Also some xmas S&P shakers. Then my Studio Ghibli collection, with some pixar, disney and other animated movies)

Here's a close up of the bells, hello kitties and the momiji doll.

 All sorts here! This is my main display (besides the tree). On the top are vintage tins and boxes, a vase from Ikea filled with ornaments and a goofy Santa head, along with a vintage Merry Christmas pick. You can also see my latest and largest bottle brush tree. It has mercury glass ornaments in it, and of course a red base! All my vintage bottle brush trees have a red base.

I'm not done decorating, keep that in mind! Next down is another tin, a Christmas corsage, and on the right is an amazing Santa teapot! His list of who is naught and nice is the handle!

Next shelf down are my Christmas girls, lots of bottle brush trees in different shades and sizes (with red bases), and my Mr. and Mrs. Claus sets. They're so cute.

The bottom shelf are my Reindeer. they're all vintage except on the far left, from Target last year. They have more there this year, may have to get one!

Here you can see most of my vintage putz houses (made in occupied Japan in case you didn't know. They're cheap, cardboard, but so cute. They have spots in the back where you can put lights.) I normally create a scene, with my tiny Santa and Mrs. Claus on ice skates, with some bottle brush trees. They're all in the corner cabinet for now. We'll see!

You can see on the right, a vintage box that looks like a chimney! I love that box.

I wrote a lot, I know. I hope you enjoyed my little Christmas Decor tour. More to come! I have the TV area,, and all my bookshelves (just the two really). Then, when they're all up, I'll do a special post to show all my Christmas garlands, of which i have many, and special things scattered around. I'll also do one on the tree, which has so many amazing, fun, different little ornaments on it!

I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR.

What kind of decorations do you have? What do you collect? Are you looking for anything special this year? I'm hoping to find a new vintage glass tree topper. I break one every year, without fail, so I have to find them at a really good price.

The Peculiar Girl and the Wood Table

Gnarly wood with knots and holes, divots and rings in shades of pale sand to roasted walnuts ran smoothly under Stay’s finger tips. Her porcelain finger caught in a deeper groove before jumping back on track with the rest of her hand lazily tracing the ancient lines. The wood table appeared roughly made; wide, uneven patches of wood set together with pegs, the grains not matching as her eyes jumped from one panel to another. Stay could only assume her mother, or possibly the father she never knew, had made it before she was born. Sitting strong in the center of the kitchen, the table had always held what was post important: a place to fold cranes, to build cakes and skin rabbits. She had bled onto the table, coffee rings almost created a pattern like a dream catcher created filigree along the edges. Gouges in the wood from an angry knife stabbed deep while shallower points were created to hold the blade in thought.

Stay imagined the wood holding onto her memories.  With no mother, father or people to remember or create memories with her, the table was the only one she could imagine capable. Once a living thing, growing strong and tall, reaching for the sky in an endless craving for life, it understood.

Reminiscent and in need of a friend, Stay brought out her old friends. The porcupine bones were still tied together with string being held together like puppets ready to dance and run with her. Stay admired the contrast as she set the bones on the wood table. Smooth creamy bones against rough woods. The combination screamed time and life at her, life gone and time always going. The tree had grown into the earth, sinking roots into the ground while branches spread into the sky. Bones of the porcupine held the life and structure of the animal while the beast remained unaware of its skeleton, the only part of the creature left. The wood and the bones would continue to live on in death, time deepening what they once were. Everything was backwards. The tree and porcupine they were dead but in death remained alive forever, they held age as time went on. Both so beautiful and so different.

Stay craved immortality in bones.

She imagined her body lying on the long kitchen table. Her form slowly decomposing and the wood soaking up what it could of her body, allowing her soul and essence to become part of the world until years drift by and it would only be her bones left on the table. Creamy, slender and elegant cradled by the table, her small bony fingers settling in the grooves of the wood, her skull pitched back to rest along a worn knot in ecstasy.

Stay rubbed the back of her head, feeling the gentle curve of her skull bend in toward her spine, the delicate balance of her entire being resting at that pivotal point. She couldn’t help wonder at how easy it would be.

Standing up and pushing away from the table, Stay shoves those thoughts away. Thinking of life and death and the potential immortality of death is dangerous. Though she never knew what happened to her mother for certain, she felt it in the center of her heart; her mother was dead.

Stay’s mother had problems. One of the comforting things Stay read in her many books was every single person had a multitude of problems. They could have problems that were solved but created new problems, problems that followed them through life and problems they never even know they had. That was the kind of problem Stay’s mother had. The kind of problem that ate away at her happiness and told her she wasn’t ok the way she was until she didn’t know how to feel. She thought the only way she could feel normal again was through pain. Stay had seen the scars forming on her mother’s arms and peeking under the hem of her shorts on her thighs.

The life left her eyes until she looked at Stay with nothing buy greyness. There were moments when Stay thought she was ok again, when her mother would fold cranes and line them on the sill in the kitchen, she would bake a strawberry tart and dust it with powdered sugar, blowing it like a cloud over the table and smiling through the cloud at Stay. The times of momentary rightness were quickly shadowed by hours, sometimes days, of stagnation. Her mother would sit in the living room staring out the window, barely moving. No more cuts, only staring into the woods as if waiting for something. Was she waiting for Stay’s father to return? Was she waiting for a reason to live?

Her mother had a problem she didn’t know she had and she couldn’t fix it. Pills might have helped her. There was a pharmacy in town and an old, kind doctor Stay saw once as a child when she had a fever. But, her mother didn’t go. She went to the market and bought food and other necessities as if she could bake it all away.

Now Stay glared at the table that held the confections of her mother’s love. The table that taunted her with life and death, making a mockery out of all Stay knew. The table soaked in their life and love and acted like its support was enough to give in return. Did it keep her mother alive? Did the hard-hearted table stop Stay’s mother from hurting herself? Did it offer support when Stay cut her finger off? Perhaps 18 years with this table was enough, maybe it was time for her to move on from the problems of her mother and make this home her own.

 Stay wanted to stay alive. The table sucked the life out of her. It would stand like an unmoving stone as a constant reminder of the pain her mother held, making it her own. It would cut at her heart making her wonder at her father and hold resentment toward her mother.

The house had an unused landline she could dust off to call information and get a technician to install internet. Then buy an old laptop from the resale shop and purchase a new table online. Stay wouldn't have to leave the house often. She could remake the home she had into anything she wanted, a Parisian coffee shop or a Buddhist temple.

With the decision made, Stay took her porcupine pals and hung them from a hook above the kitchen window. Opening the window allowed a breeze to pulsate through, the bones becoming chimes as they gently knocked on one another like laughter.

The table would have to go.

© Ash Huntley