I collect lots of things: little wooden dolls with wobbly heads, vases with faces on, really small things, little matchboxes, photobooth photos. Hobbies, I definitely collect hobbies! Some of which have made me the exact kind of person you’d find useful in an apocalypse!
These are all intentional collections, but there are also accidental collections – like realising you have 13 pairs of nail clippers because the sensory nightmare of toenails that need clipping is far too much to bear. Enough scissors to resource a primary school classroom. Because when inspiration strikes and you need to start a project, you simply can’t be scrambling around to find scissors.
I collect people, good eggs.
Sometimes I collect their problems too, and it can be heavy on the heart. But maybe a problem shared is a problem halved, as they say. I collect other collectors, humans who like niche or special things.
I collect occasional harsh words and carry them around for days. I collect the kinder words too and carry them for years. I collect forehead kisses, and bruises – like a little peach.
I collect moments, and glimmers – little opportunities that deserve to be explored. I collect the connective tissue between things too. Big picture and granular detail.
And so this is a collection, this flat, this project. A collection of so many things!
Quite literally, but also in the abstract too.
It’s a collection that started under my desk and then spilled over and over until here we are. Or did it? Maybe it started in Sweden on study exchange, when I nervously stood up and introduced myself and my fact about myself was that I liked collecting small things. Wherever it started though, it led us right here!
– Z