The home as a force of agency and power is an interesting way to look at the places we all dwell in. Almost as if they are their own little ecosystems, our homes help us reflect who we are through their designs, their  aesthetics, and their ability to accommodate all of our stuff. Having this power, we use our homes as extensions of who we are, like all other objects, and create environments where we feel a sense of comfort among our endless belongings.

The first item that I thought of after I read Chapter 3 of Stuff was my grandfather’s living-room clock. Since I was a child, I have visited my grandparents in their 1970’s era ranch house in northern Georgia, and every time I would arrive I was undoubtedly greeted by their old and intricate clock that sat proudly above their fireplace. An antique piece originally crafted in the late 19th Century, the clock would stare at me as I’d pass through their front door; authoritative and austere. My grandfather would explain how the clock was very fragile, and that if I played with it and broke it, I would have destroyed a relic of our family’s past. To say the least, the clock scared the crap out of me. I would become a neurotic mess every time I visited their house, in fear that I might trip and bang into it, or carelessly close a door too quickly and cause the whole house to reverberate and move it.

My visits to their home, however pleasant they would end up being, were always overshadowed by the neurosis I would experience as soon as I saw that clock.  Most of my memories of their house still elicit that sort of fear and worry I experienced as a clumsy child, and still define the atmosphere and aesthetic of their home for me. Their clock, and all of the other antiques they collected, made everything I could touch breakable, and still overshadow much of how I feel about my relationship with them and their belongings.

The clock says a lot about who my grandfather is. A man trapped in the past, a time of opportunity and abundance for him. My grandfather keeps simple mementos of his past surrounding him, especially in his old age, to remind him of a better time. As a young person, invading that space and potentially breaking one of his pieces was unnerving to him, and so he would reiterate as much as possible how careful I had to be around his stuff. The clock delineates my grandfather’s neuroticism, regret, nostalgia, and sadness in his old age. It represents a sort of remnant of his past, and he clings on to that remnant as much as possible. This aura of regret, neuroticism, and sadness permeated every inch of the house, and created an atmosphere so staunch I can still feel it today, even hundreds of miles away.