lessons learned from my Aunt Jennie’s desk
King Anne
GiaB writing prompt #21 furniture
I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too. Queen Elizabeth I
A ruler who tolerated no dissent, my aunt loved her Queen Anne desk. I don’t. I am no fan of furniture with folderals.
Yet I can empathize with Anne, how history marred its ornamentation of her reign with a deep scar of a smear campaign schemed by a woman she’d loved, chiseled more deeply into time’s grain by men who disdained her inner décor’s lack of a Y chromosome.
Queens are kings. Kings are queens — and, no, I don’t mean it that way.
Take my desk — it’s white and spare. Plainsong. My aunt’s is brown, a Bach partita in mahogany. Both are knockoffs. Both have drawers stocked with pens, pencils, post it notes, papers; swollen with secrets.
Both open their laps to others, albeit my desk’s is more expansive. But Aunt Jennie was a woman of her time. Fourteen-year-olds don’t wear eye makeup, God was Episcopalian, a Gatekeeper and Keeper of Scores, and wearing your heart on your sleeve, a blasphemy.
Still, like the Virgin Queen, her third and fourth chakras were a king’s, although her rolling eyes would launch chakras instantly into the cosmic abyss. Don’t be one of those women, she’d tell me — a bloodhound scenting my dependency before I even knew what the word meant.
I wish I’d paid attention.
I am paying attention now. My Aunt Jennie’s desk — refinished, re-envisioned, with a rediscovered desktop I should have remembered, its reach as surprising as waves at heightening tides – is me, King Anne.
©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2021
When I wrote the words “King Anne,” my jaw dropped. Why? Because thanks to advice from Trista Signe Ainsworth, I’ve named my soul. And the name I chose for her is Anna. Here’s my Ode.
It is also intriguing me that I am writing about a desk owned by my Aunt Jennie, after whom I am named. Ah, Aunt Jennie, I miss you, although you did indeed plague me the summer I was fourteen, bellowing, “Where is that 14-year old? Is that 14-year old putting on eye makeup again?”
Victor Sarkin, thank you so much for a poetic “E ticket ride” and journey through memories, courtesy of this prompt:
And dearest readers, thank you as always for ‘riding’ with me.