Artifacts

Our house has yielded some traces of human hands, dwellments from the past, ghosts that inhabit old Saturdays and crannies inside walls. Surprisingly little, actually, given it’s 76 years old. No gold coins, no newspaper photos of Eisenhower or the Challenger. But these:




Rook card. The 10 of green. See here for more about Rooks, especially My Collection/By Card Back.



Message scrawled on a triangular piece of drywall installed in our attic. It reads “1 Because” with copious underlining. That’s a numeral, not a personal pronoun.




Two sets of initials carved in different areas of the concrete basement floor. Perhaps it was poured after 1932. Perhaps these two humans are related by blood or marriage.



The piece de resistance, mentioned previously on this blog. A set of about 12 Polaroids found tucked against the chimney in a part of the crawlspace relatively inaccessible by crawling, but reachable from the more convenient basement with long arms and/or a stepladder. They show a young woman in various states of dress/undress and in increasing levels of intimacy with the photographer. This one is on the tamer side. Red leaf added for privacy, and I do like how it matches her garment.

Troublingly, in just one of the dozen photos, she is bundled in a quilt and baggy T-shirt, sitting on the floor, with a resentful expression.--Erika