Genealogical Artifact

When I was younger, I was small. I mean, I’m still small.  But when I was a little girl, I was extremely small.  So small, in fact, that I use to sleep in laundry baskets.  Now, before I say any more, I want to clear something up.  I did not sleep in laundry baskets out of force.  It was not because we were too poor for a bed or because my older brothers forced me into one.  I did it because I wanted to.

I am not sure how exactly I got into doing this.  For as long as I can remember I use to sneak into the laundry room at night and steal a basket.  Placing it right next to my bed I would stuff it to the brim with pillows and blankets and then wiggle myself into the middle of them for a good night sleep.  This was the perfect bed for me.  This was comfort.

I say, “steal a basket”, like I had to hide it from my parents.  I am pretty sure that they knew I was stealing one every night I did.  In fact, I am positive that they did, as my mom would be the one to wake me up almost every morning.  I am not sure why they let me do this night after night, but they did.  In fact, in later years, if I had a bad day, my parents would even set one up for me.  So when I say, “steal”, I am going back into the childhood memory of a five year old sneaking around in the dark, feeling like they were so sneaky to do things after dark.  But I digress, back to the story.

As I grew older I moved up from the small round baskets to the odd, larger peanut shaped ones.  Remembering the day that I found I could not fit in the basket anymore is a sad memory.  I am sure I was in denial for a few weeks.  Or probably months.  And I am still convinced that somewhere out there, there is a laundry basket I can fit in.  Maybe a giant industrial one.  Or one of those carts for a hotel.

Either way, laundry baskets still remind me of my childhood.  They bring back a warm, comforting memory.  I actually do not own one myself (I have a laundry bag instead).  However, every time I see someone at the laundry mat that brings one in, I still get this same feeling.  It is the exact same feeling I get when I see the old laundry baskets sitting in our washroom at home.  And overwhelming feeling to pile in some blankets and pillows and jump inside.  This feeling that inside that basket, I can go back to being a six-year-old girl without troubles or fears.  A feeling of comfort and joy.  And the feeling of one of the best nights of sleep I have ever, and will ever have in my life.

That is what a laundry basket means to me:  childhood comfort.

Artist Statement:

There were a few things I could have chosen for my genealogical artifact.  I have a carousel necklace from when I was younger because I loved them so much.  Or a soccer ball, seeing as I played since I was about four years old.  Or even an old stuffed animal I use to take with me everywhere.  But I chose laundry baskets because of the odd feeling they give me.  Most people don’t look at a basket that normally holds old, smelly clothes and think, “Wow, that looks so comfy, I have an overwhelming urge to sleep in that!”  but I get that feeling every time I see one.

Our weekly readings for this assignment included a poem by Neruda called the “Ode to Things” which talks of how small things in the narrator’s life hold so much meaning for him.  He talks about bigger things.  Those grand things that everyone would assume to mean something.  But then he also mentions those small things, like “thimbles” and “salt-shakers”, and talks about how they also mean something to him.  I like this poem and the idea behind it, because even the very small things in our lives can hold some great memory if they are in the right place at the right time.  I am not sure how or when or why I started to sleep in laundry baskets, but that one moment changed my attitude towards them as a child and still holds an impact on me today.

This assignment reminded me of a song my friend showed me a while ago called “Colors” by Kira Willey.  In the song Willey talks about how she is a certain color each day, and each color holds both a feeling and a connection to an object.  It reminds me of how the world relates certain things to certain emotions almost instinctively, like a calm blue sea.  It is interesting to look at how we seem to want to draw conclusions between objects.  Like a happy yellow sun.  Or a warm, comfortable laundry basket.