Caravan

When I was about eleven years old my dad came home with a beautiful wooden caravan that had been made by a prisoner years beforehand.

It was about three feet long and painted a beautiful cream colour with blue trim.  Black wooded wheels.  A door that opened and had steps that folded down.

Inside there was a lounge room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a small bathroom.  It had furnishings and little paintings were made from magazine cut outs and framed on the walls.  The windows had curtains.  There was a carpet like material on the floor.

You could lift the roof off in two sections to peer down into it.  I would put the dolls inside it.  Sat them on the couch.  Lay them in bed.  Sewed some material so it would make a new bedspread.

I spent hours playing with the caravan.  It was one of the most pleasurable things to sit out in the backyard  and lose myself in the world of dolls and the caravan.

It stayed in my bedroom.  It was my caravan and I did not want to share it with anyone.  Besides, I was more into playing with things like that than anyone else in the family.

As I got older the caravan got less attention.  Eventually it sat in my wardrobe and I did not play with it at all.

But it was still mine.

I moved out of home when I was nineteen.  When I was out of home my mother went through my vacant bedroom and threw out all my toys, caravan included.

Out went my collection of Bayko.  Along with that went my Britains Floral plastic toys.  Books I had kept for years.  The small, soft bodied doll that I had rescued from the nature strip outside my friend's house when they had a throw out.  It played Brahms lullaby when it was wound up.  Its little head moved.

Also tossed away was my small collection of Venetian glass beads that I loved to look at.

Things that mattered to me meant nothing to her.  They were just things that filled up space and were no longer used.  For me, they were objects that filled my world when things were chaotic around me.

Over the years I have collected a lot of Bayko.  It sits in boxes up on the garage mezzanine floor.  I also have managed to build up a collection of Britians Florals.  And some Venetian glass beads which, although pretty, are no match for the ones I had all those years ago.

No doll.

And no caravan.  I know I will never see anything like that again.

I am sure that my over consideration in regards to my son's belongings stems directly from my mother's lack of consideration in regards to what were my belongings.

He has quite a few boxes of things around the place.  Toys he played with a lot.  Books he read all the time.  I have kept quite a lot and maybe he won't care about any of the things one way or the other but I believe it is not up to me to make the call as to whether something stays or not.  I have told him that he can get rid of what ever he wants when he wants to.

Call me sentimental.

That is better than being inconsiderate.

Ciao
LC