butter dish memories

I was washing this butter dish I had bought in a vintage store, a short while ago. And I was thinking – I bought it because I had been wanting one just like it for a long time. How odd that it brings up a whole slice of my childhood even though I can not remember my mom owning one like this... my Grand-Ma maybe? ...Anyhow, it is so fascinating how memories work. When I hold this in my hand, I feel I am holding my childhood, even though I have no image in my mind of such thing.

I have noticed it before: finding a book and knowing we had it at home yet not having a visual memory of it. I guess you can preserve the emotion of an object without saving a picture for it. It is the emotion you recognize... not the object!

...

While I'm here, I want to mention the true story of this little wicker tray you see, under the butter dish in the photo. It came from my dad. Once he had moved to his last home in the 80's, he still had a whole warehouse of all the things he had accumulated from his life, inherited from the aunt who raised him and I was thinking as I walked through it with him one day when I was still young. "He has given us so few of his things and here he is, with so many possessions that he even needs a warehouse to hold it, in addition to his home! I looked with my eyes for something I could ask him to give me. I picked up this tray and showed it to him. He looked at it with wondrous eyes and said "this is very ...very old".

I knew that in the mouth of my dad such statement had a whole different meaning than in an other. My dad had an antique store, all he owned in his house was antique, He could recognize the era of any piece of furniture from ancient time till last year and had a very sharp eye for craftmanship, style and character. I did not comment on that then but asked him if I could have it. He said yes and apologized for the dirt on it.

And ever since then, I have wondered... How old is it ...really???