The LawnStreet Drawer

Notes on the domestic Curiosity Cabinet aka the 3rd or bottom drawer ...

Above image via Of Moth and Moon on Etsy.

When I was a little girl, we often used to visit my grandparents in their two story brick Edwardian (this is a guess) house on Lord Street, Sandy Bay. The house felt huge to me, tucked streets back from the beach and to the south of Hobart city. As you entered “Lord Street” (or “Lawnstreet” as I thought it was called then) from the verandah and through the front door there was an imposing formal lounge room to the left and my grandparents giant bedroom to the right, complete with powdery-scented ensuite.

Down the hallway to the right was a thickly carpeted staircase with a fish tank tucked against the wall by the bottom stair. It was filled with shiny, darting Neon Tetras and other tropical fish and it hummed and bubbled in a very comforting manner. Beside the fish was the regular lounge room door and a bathroom beside that. We watched telly and ate meals in the regular lounge room, uncles and aunties, grandparents and parents and all of us kids together in various configurations, saying grace and sipping soup.

The more formal lounge was rarely used for such family get-togethers. Or at least that’s how I remember things. It was filled with a grand lounge suite, a piano and a wall of bookshelves heaving with printed copies of my great-grandfather’s writing. It was dark in there and I loved to smell the leathery scent and tinkle Chopsticks badly on the piano keys.

Glass-paned doors on the far side of this formal lounge led to a sort of sunroom that someone had dubbed The Playroom. It was lined with cupboards full of old toys and books and things and it smelled a lot like crayons in there. Beyond The Playroom was a little foyer that intersected the laundry area, the kitchen door and the door to the back-yard. Out there were plum trees, a quite weather-beaten steel monkey bars and a chook shed which stank to high heaven and churned out warm and messy eggs. I loved it out there, but when it was too cold my siblings and/or cousins and I would often huddle at the kitchen table by the heater, watching the interesting goings on of family life. Once I burnt myself on the heater and my grandfather dressed the wound with butter. I did not like this. Sometimes my paternal Nanna made chocolate topping for us as a special treat, stirring drinking chocolate powder and boiling water in a little silver jug and drizzling it over perfect orbs of vanilla ice cream, carved out with a potato scoop.

Above: That’s me on the right. I’m just waiting to get my mitts on the drawer.

There was a drawer in that kitchen that I liked more than the chocolate sauce and much, much more than the butter. It was filled with a cluttery, clattering assortment of things. It’s hard for me to remember exactly, but what I do remember is that it seems like a treasure trove, a Curiosity Cabinet of the most messy and domestic kind. I do know there were pens (sometimes working) and Textas (the kind that smelled like alcohol when you wrestled the cap off and put it to your nose.) There were marbles, some small and some large, some cracked, some chipped, some cloudy, and some clear and swirled with a flourish of pink or yellow or aqua. Maybe they had been thrown against the front garden path by one of my cousins or even my dad and his brothers when they were small like us?

Above: Everybody’s favourite TEXTA … The TEXTA Stubby (apparently discontinued now … sob! Image via.)

There were colouring books sometimes, pamphlets someone had collected and stowed away for safekeeping. A tide chart. A packet of stamps torn from the corner of envelopes that were dropped in the letterbox of number 23, the Queen’s crowned head against a background of magenta or cerise or tangerine. Sweetly coloured birthday candles, burned down to different lengths. A paint-by-numbers pad that conjured up the neatest pastel colouring-in if you just added a flick of water with a brush. There might have been a fountain pen and some old ink cartridges, long since dried up. A stamp pad or two and some rubber stamps. An inordinate number of HB, 3B, 2B pencils. (Why all the Bs, I wonder? Why?) There most certainly was a whole arsenal of erasers in various bumped up and rubbed away shapes, ready to attend to any number of mistakes. A little notepad, spiral bound, with my Nanna Icky’s spidery handwriting on the turned-over pages. A Birthday Book with a few names beside their dates in the same hand.

Above: A whole book about erasers via Present & Correct.

When I pulled my hands out of the drawer they’d be a bit dusty, a bit inky, stained with lead pencil shavings, perhaps a bit gluey even. But I didn’t mind. I had usually located the perfect party whistle, the prettiest little ballerina cake topper figurine (with just a slight dusting of old icing on her pointed toes) or even a roll of Fruit Tingles that had magically appeared since the last time I was poking about in there.

(Above: Note my pockets, just perfect for storing treasures in)

That drawer always felt like a safe place. A place full of stories where I might not know the beginning or the ending or any of it at all. It was a cabinet of curiosities, curiosities I could ask my Nanna about as she busied about the kitchen and kept an eye on all of us.

Sometimes the things went back into the drawer, finding their place among the other bits and pieces, waiting to be discovered or rediscovered by another family member. Sometimes the bit or the piece came home with me. A smooth pebble tucked into my pocket or a colourful hair slide clipped into my own blonde hair instead of the cousin or aunty who had left it behind.

Above: Queenie stamps image via Lunaroom Vintage on Etsy

Did my Nanna put these things in there for us deliberately? The thought has only just struck me now, as I am remembering this and preparing to be a granny too. I think having a special drawer like this might be a kind of secret grandparent prerequisite, the kind that’s not spoken openly about but that’s recognised with a knowing nod when it finds its way into nostalgic conversation such as this one we are having right now! Reader, I’m going to make one, although it might be in the more traditional form of a cupboard, rather than The LawnStreet Drawer.

Is there a Curiosity Cabinet in your family? In the form of a special drawer? Or a promising-looking trunk? Or something similar?

xx Pip

PS: Thank you to everyone who has subscribed. It’s been so overwhelming! I will be back here on the weekend with another update.