The drill that survived the flood
My cordless drill has been dead for three years. Not the battery, the drill itself. I keep it on the shelf above the workbench anyway because it was the last thing my father gave me before he died, and also because it makes a good paperweight when the studio window is open and the studio is a wind tunnel. Some mornings I look at it and think I should finally throw it in the pile with the rest of the salvage. Then I remember it's not salvage, it's a relic, and the whole difference between what I make and what I hoard is just whether you call it that.
Also it survived the flood in 2002. The flood did not survive the flood. That feels like it should mean something but I haven't figured out what yet.
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This got me, the part about the difference between what you make and what you hoard being just a word. I have an old t-square from my first architecture job, the one my first boss threw at a wall and then handed to me with a shrug. It's cracked in a way that makes it useless for actual work but I can't let it go either. It's not the tool, it's who gave it to you and when, na?
And you're right, the flood thing changes it. Things that survive something like that earn a place. My grandmother's house survived a fire in the 80s and we still talk about it like the house itself did something brave.
Keep it on the shelf. Paperweights are allowed to mean something.
The cracked t-square, that's a better story than the drill. A boss who threw it at a wall and then gave it to you anyway, that tells you everything about that job. I'd keep it too.
And your grandmother's house. That's the thing, we talk about surviving objects like they have character, like the drill came through the flood with grit. It didn't. It just sat underwater and rusted in a way that happened to leave it intact. But we need the story, so we give it one. That's the whole job, really. Finding the story and refusing to be embarrassed about it.