My aunt’s seller was a place of Order and Joy. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. It wasn’t well lit. It was mostly clean, though. And there were shelves and shelves of so much different stuff. Collections from over the years, tools, playing cards, baskets, light bulbs, some furniture, some books, carpentry stations to work wood, smithing stations to work metal . Nothing soft, no fabric, some tarps I used to sleep done there when I could get away with it. I spent a lot of time there.
The few windows only had a ground level view of our yard. We moved in with my aunt three years ago. I didn’t start spending a lot of time in her basement until about six months ago. Spending time in the basement was better than other places in the house. But I didn’t like to think about that.
That’s why I spent time down here in my aunt’s basement. She didn’t store any clothes down here.
She also didn’t mind that sometimes I liked to examine things and move them around. She did ask that I put them back where they were originally, eventually, and she did notice when I got things wrong. But she was kind about it correcting me. Well, kind for her. Maybe a little strict by most other people’s standards, but kind for her. She was very precise. But she had a lot of leeway for me. Especially if I got things wrong. She didn’t mind explaining it over and over. She was gentle in corrections. Better than– Well, my aunt was not the only other adult in the house.
But down here? I could be free. I could read her books. The few of them there. There were a lot of electronics too. I got to take them apart, see how they worked. There were even some outlets so I could see what still worked and what didn’t. A lot of it actually did still work. There were, strangely, some books that weren’t there initially started to appear. Things about fixing things or about repairs or crafts to make it and work with tools or even how to carve wood. Other little hobbies too, gardening, that didn’t interest me. It involves being out of the basement but understanding the plants did prove helpful. I quietly thanked my aunt, but she genuinely looked confused by what I was talking about. She didn’t have a good poker face, and it wasn’t a subtle “we won’t talk about it” kind of thing. She didn’t know where they came from.
She was good about keeping the bugs and mice out of the basement, though they were occasionally some in the rest of the house. It was something my mom got mad about. There were no pets here. I missed Mr. Jingles my cat. We weren’t able to bring him with us.
that basement that not well lit. The basement was a very orderly place in some ways, like a library only not only books on the shelves. And more lively than a museum. There were gardening tools. There were there was a woodshop, a metal shop, repaired and hardware tools. Things used to carve stone, wood, candles for wax, the hardware had tools to deal with wiring, and taking all manner of mechanical things apart.
My aunt knew how to use all of it. And she was good at it all, too.
She had recently begun to show me how to use some of the equipment for the wood and metal working. She wouldn’t let me do it. But she would let me watch her. She said that was the best place to start: to watch someone who knew what they were doing. She couldn’t spend much time down there anymore. Getting down the stairs was difficult. They were narrow, and just a little too steep. And it was an old house. So it wasn’t really possible to put in some kind of elevator or moving chair or something else. I thought of devising different ways that might assist her in coming up and down so that she could show me and spend time with me.
I loved my aunt dearly.
there are no stories, no pieces of fiction in the basement. but there were some travel books. somewhere else. The thought of being somewhere else, losing myself in another activity…
It was a joy to be lost in the work of my hands and the whole world fade away. I longed for that time
I took apart and reassembled every piece of equipment that was down there. From the lamps, the computers, radios, two watches. I even took apart the buzz saw and and drill, partially to see if I could. My aunt was less thrilled with that but she helped me put it back together.
It was a bit dusty initially, but I spent enough time down there to keep it all quite clean.
The family bible was down there too. It was the largest book I’d ever seen. The spine was over a foot tall. It was thicker than my hand, and bigger than my head. It was easily the oldest thing in the house, at least 300 years old.
Martin Write 