Ode to the Junk Drawer

Ode to the Junk Drawer

Someone wondered why many of us have junk drawers, and did we keep similar things in them. Another, attempting some sort of sublime order, asked if it was OK to split up the junk drawers. I said, No, it is never a good idea to split up a kitchen junk drawer, there is an inherent creative relationship between the things living in the junk drawer. Some of it has to do with their very unlikely relationship to each other. The other has to do with their relative age—how long they have occupied that particular drawer. It’s like an archaeological dig. Things build relationships and alliances with each other. Even secret assignations. All this comes into play when you have to raid the junk drawer to fix something. I can’t tell you how many times I have dived into the junk drawer to retrieve one particular fixit item only to have it attached to another item which turns out to be absolutely necessary to fixing my fixit project. It’s a form of divining. You are aligning the simile gods. Not only do powerful Fixits live in the junk drawer, but nascent poems and future assemblages live there too. Think of it as an art homework bank. I positively had an epiphany when I realized that clear Capri juice straw would fix my frayed iPod wire. Had I not tossed it into the drawer while channeling my grandmother, the two ideas would not have crossed paths. Our junk drawers spans two households and four generations dating back to the Great Depression—an era when you either made do, or did without. No replacement things were available. Not like now, the throw-it-away into the landfill era. Invariably, you will find that when you clean your junk drawer, and randomly throw some of the odd bits away, perversely, those will be the very bits you’ll need to fix your next fixit project. I have had to go trash spelunking in order to retrieve said worthless object I tossed out. So, alway curate and cull with care. Yes, judiciously curate your junk drawer, it must never overflow its confines. But don’t split it. The only free pass you’ll ever get is when you move from one house to another. And then you are allowed to relentlessly cull. The junk drawer gods will understand. But it is important to transfer some prize items from the old junk drawer to the new one, like a prized sourdough starter, so as not to break the long tradition of good juju. And in a pinch, you can auction off the contents of your junk drawer on eBay. Long live the tinkerers and the makers, the McGuyvers, the creative ones who can see solutions beyond the junk.

Please post a photo of your junk drawer.

This post is for Margaret Maughan