attics are usually small, hot,and full of stuff like family Bibles, vinyl records, old photographs, and newspaper clippings about woodstock or the day jfk died. if you're lucky, there's a mannequin or two up there or maybe one of those headless human-like things that seamstresses and tailors use to hang the clothes they're sewing onto. or, if you're really lucky, like kevin from "home alone," there's a life-sized michael jordan up there. just in case you ever need to make it look from the street like that there's somebody in your living room. so don't try breakin' in.
attics also are places that hold all the things that when you ask somebody like your mom or your dad or your grandma or grandpa, "whatever happened to (fill-in-the-blank)," they'll say, "i dunno, it's prob'ly in the attic." and when you go up there to see, sure enough, there it is. even if you do have to dig around awhile to find it.
attics are usually nothing but a bunch of unfinished boards and wires and pipes and pink insulation and their unfinished, raw selves represent everything that's right with the world and how, in spite of our materialistic american selves, we can still sometimes manage to get our priorities right:
attics are humble not proud, simple not fancy. it's the rare attic that has felt the need to upgrade to marble countertops.
attics preserve precious memories, most of them family-related. if you go back downstairs after a visit to the attic, nine times out of ten, the family's not there. because they're out playing golf or over at the mall.
attics don't care what kind of faucets the rest of the house has or how hip and cool the color scheme is. all an attic cares about is whether or not it kept your sentimental things intact and the dust to a relative minimum.
they spend countless days and nights unvisited (and in many cases, unremembered), guarding precious mementos and the family "jewels." they don't get much attention or consideration and when someone does go up there, it's not so much to say hi to the attic as it is to go up as fast as you can, find what you came up here for, and get the heck back downstairs as fast as you can. because it's hot up there and who wants to be hot.
but the attic doesn't get angry. the attic says, thanks for dropping by and, see you next time.
attics are faithful. they are faithful servants - if not of God then at least of us. and we ought to give them a little more respect.
yesterday, rudy and i went up to the attic in his - our - house and although his - our - attic isn't small (it's actually huge) and although it isn't hot (it's actually quite cool and comfortable), it's still an attic. and it's still the watchman for years and years of a life - soon to be two lives - well-lived, worth remembering, and worth preserving.
the supremes told us to "go up the ladder to the roof" and the drifters before them sang about the glories of being "up on the roof." i think both of them were right - the roof is a great and open-sky place to be. but don't bypass the attic on your way to the roof. the roof may have a spectacular view of heaven,
but the attic holds generations of reasons why being on earth can be pretty heavenly, too.
