My place has a similar fussy feel to it. Lots of souvenirs. No lace doilies, but a lot of signed books and empty envelopes with significant postmarks. But even the souvenirs seem to have failed me. Like this old clock I purchased for myself one Christmas when I was twenty-odd. It ticks. I time my bread with it. I have to work myself up, concentrate, and say out loud, “Why, that is the clock I bought with so-and-so in the snow with the bells of the charity Santa Claus outside. I couldn’t afford the one I wanted, which had dragons on the dial, and had to settle for this one with the flowers. I hated those flowers for years before I got to like them,” etc. And still it doesn’t set me off. The words themselves have become things associated with the clock now and not with me in these old days. It’s the same with the coal scuttle and the salt shaker, and my womb-shaped sugar bowl. When the phallic cream pitcher broke a few years ago I was depressed for days—but that was just loss, not nostalgia. But I go through the motions. I’ve put Mr. Geddoes’s last order form in the Death and Taxes drawer of my desk, so I’ll have a spur to think of him every spring or so when I get to clearing things away. But the spurs and hooks I assemble are no help to me yet. For now, at least, I don’t need them. I cling to them for the future. I wouldn’t throw the clock away even if it didn’t tick. I’d put it away in case someday I can’t remember the so-and-so who stood beside me in the snow that day. In case the sight and shape of him manage to slip by me as my brain slows, I might need the touch or look of the clock to bring it back.

The rest of the furnishings are accidents of liking, temporary or lasting, and availability. The bathroom is painted Sinbad Blue, which looked good at the store, and the name appealed to me, but it is wretched. It’s been wretched for five years now. I suppose it might be expected that I’d become accustomed to it, but I haven’t.