In our home, there lives an aged ballerina who has a serious drinking problem. She literally lives inside a bottle of some ancient booze, and when you twist the bottom of the bottle, she spins around while music plays.
Next to her lives Jim Beam – not the common type, but a “special edition” cousin of his. And next to Jim there’s an open bottle of (most assuredly denatured) Crown Royal. There’s also a bottle of Dom Perignon, unopened, in a box, from 1982, and a bunch of other wines and spirits.
We suspect the people who used to live here were either really bad at being alcoholics, or they entertained a lot.
As we go through and organize the stuff they left behind for sale we are piecing together a picture of who they were and what they might have been like. We are learning more about the woman than the man – most of the things seem to be hers rather than his. She was a seamstress – the sewing room and tons and tons and tons and TONS of fabric and patterns attest to that. She was interested in a variety of fad diets – the Weight Watchers materials and fad diet pamphlets could be organized by era, culminating in a diet designed to reduce ulcers. She was into anti-aging stuff as well – I’m wish her on that front.
The guy – he is an enigma. We know a few things about him thanks to the Internet, but he didn’t really leave an impression on the house that we could see. There were tools, but not a lot and not of any particular quality – so he wasn’t “handy.” We know he died a couple of years ago, so maybe that explains the lack of things, but even so, it was very much her house.
They kept documentation about things – we know how to turn on and off an old CRT television we will never use because of their instructions. We know what they thought about various service providers they had used throughout the years because they left notes. There are cards around for everyone who ever sold them anything – we know what they paid for carpet and blinds and couches back in the day. They didn’t leave anything personal, not like a journal or diary or letters.
I know that a lot of things were taken out, but it is interesting to think about who they might have been. I like to think they were happy here, and that we will be happy here, too.