Trunk space

When I was a kid, my mom had an old trunk that she bought from an estate sale. Before I left for college I claimed it as my own, and since then it's traveled with me to every dwelling, serving as storage, seating, table, and conversation piece until Phillip took it with him when he left for college.

Before Daniel moved out a few weeks ago, he and Shay were shopping for a coffee table, but when area thrift stores didn’t yield anything, I suggested they look for a trunk, since storage space is always at a premium in apartments. He wrinkled his nose at this suggestion, so I told him to take the coffee table from the basement.

With the coffee table out of the way, I figured maybe I should replace it…with a trunk. The kids hang out in the basement and, because it gets cold down there, we keep a lot of afghans and blankets handy, mostly piled in a corner where they collect dust, cat hair, and possibly spiders. I figured a trunk would keep them cleaner, neater—off the floor, anyway—and could also serve as a table.

I began watching Craig’s List for bargains. There were some amazing trunks out there, and a lot of them had amazing prices—certainly more than I wanted to pay for a place for the kids to prop their feet. A rustic trunk was snapped up before I could claim it, and I emailed about a cedar chest but I got no answer. And then I discovered a steamer trunk: not wood, but sturdy, in good shape, and bright blue. And the price was right.

I shot off a message, and yes, the trunk was still available. After a few email volleys, we agreed to meet. It’s probably the writer in me that compels me to compile back stories for people before I meet them. Her name was Jessica, so I figured she was early 30s. Her choice of vehicle led me to believe she had a large family, and when her email signature included a Bible verse (that she had edited to include exclamation points), I pegged her as a home schooler. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

She was already waiting when I pulled into the gas station where we were meeting, in her Yukon that bore smiling stick-figure kids—five of them. A couple of the kids were in the car; Jessica got out and popped the hatch, and there was the trunk, exactly as expected. She helped me get into my car, explaining that she had hoped to do something creative with it over the summer, but with a new baby all the homeschooling, she just hadn’t gotten around to it. I handed her the cash and we parted ways.

I got my treasure home and vacuumed it out. Lily helped me lug it downstairs and position it in front of the couch. I tossed in the freshly washed blankets. Done. Couldn’t be happier.

Except I’d become a little addicted to looking at Craig’s List trunks, so I went back online and noticed that a trunk I’d been eying had dropped in price. It obviously needed a little love, but no more than lots of other trunks priced at four times the money. The description, however, told the story: the trunk was locked, there was no key, and the owners had tried to drill the lock, so the lock was damaged.

It was such a great deal, I didn’t think twice before shooting off an email.

When I arrived at the address, Sean had already moved the chest out onto the porch. He told me that when he and his wife purchased it from a friend, there had been a key but it was broken, and his drill had not been powerful enough to break the lock. He and his wife were offloading things because they were going to put their house on the market. They didn’t have another house in mind; he thought they would rent for a while. Something about him made me wonder if they were on their way to the mission field, but I didn’t ask. We loaded up the trunk and wished each other well.

Bill’s drill was strong enough to bust through the lock, which probably wasn’t original to the piece, although it matched the hinges, so I’m guessing both were replaced in the 80s, during the height of the country decorating trend. Inside the trunk was a beautiful cedar lining and a tag that offered $150 in replacement value for moth damage from Caswell-Runyan in Huntington, Indiana.

Hand-crafted cedar chests existed before Caswell-Runyan, but none were massed produced before the company began in 1906. The company closed in 1956, and the styling of my trunk suggests that it was constructed sometime in the 1920s, probably about the time my grandparents married. I wondered if my grandmother had a cedar chest, and I imagined the young bride who used this chest when it was new to collect the makings of her new home. I pondered how many different owners had stored their treasures in its fragrant walls and left their marks on its worn exterior over the decades.

In the antiques business they call that patina: a reflection of the piece’s age, and a reminder of everyone who’s ever touched it—its backstory, as it were. We don’t have a word like that for people, which is kind of too bad. We forget that aging is a gift, and that the marks on us are a sign of survival and strength—pain, too, of course, but of pain that did not defeat us. With people, we don’t always appreciate the beauty that comes from imperfection, from the wear-and-tear of hurting and loving and surviving.

Even with its dings and imperfections, the trunk’s wood was beautifully enhanced with lemon oil, a little sanding, and a little stain and varnish. Sometimes just a little love can work wonders.

At some point we might replace the lock, but at the moment that little imperfection is part of its story. I imagine that someday one of the kids will claim it as their own and schlep it from house to house, or perhaps it will wind up on Craig’s List. But for now it has a home, and a purpose, and the unique beauty that comes from a long life.