reblogging of-saudade:

“GDSP 10 – Directed by electronicalrattlebag

Take a picture of yourself with an important thing.

You could tell us what the thing is, and why it is important to you.

You could tell us how it smells, feels, tastes, sounds, if these are applicable.”

“I found this quite hard because I couldn’t decide what ‘important’ meant to me. I attach strange sentimentality to all things; objects, songs, films, places. This is the Tea House.

“The Tea House has been with me for over 20 years. It’s a tin that came filled with cheap English toffees that I got for Christmas when I was six years old. I don’t remember who gave it to me, probably one of my distant aunts. After the toffees were eaten, my mother used it to hold herbal tea bags; peppermint to sooth my frequent stomachaches, chamomile to help me sleep, some awful lemon concoction that she made me drink when I had glandular fever for most of the year I was thirteen.

“I didn’t think to take it with me when I ran away from home, but a few weeks later it arrived in the garbage bag of remaining belongings that my mother unceremoniously dumped at the front door whilst I was still at school, a few stray bags of tea fluttering inside. For a while I kept money in it, then cigarettes, drugs, things to spite my mother, but it just felt wrong, and it became the Tea House again.

“The Tea House is ‘important’ because it is a tiny pocket of warmth, care and affection from my childhood. It smells like Earl Grey, is cold to the touch, clangs like a broken bell when you drop it, and its contents taste delicious.”

You all know about GDSP, right?

I set number 10, you can see the other submissions (also amazing, insightful, beautiful) for that prompt here.

• • (reblogged from of-saudade)