Things That Last

 I have always loved old things: antiques, traditional ways of doing things, old photographs, stories about earlier times. This is probably why I write historical fiction/historical romance.

A while ago as I poured water into my Mr. Coffee®, it occurred to me that I’ve been using the same coffee maker almost every day for thirteen years. Now I’m wondering what its life expectancy is (for purposes of comparison, the dishwasher, refrigerator, and the washer, all new in 2008, had to be replaced in the last two years). The gas stove, bought at the same

time, has no oven light and no clock because it’s strictly gas, with no electric bells and whistles, is still going strong. I did have to have a repair guy come in to clean the soot out of the bottom of the oven when the holes got plugged and the oven stopped heating*. My Kitchenaid Junior stand mixer, now about forty years old, still works. By comparison, I’ve been through three (three!) printers in thirteen years.

That led to contemplation of things that last.

Years ago, I bought a Hoosier kitchen cabinet. For the benefit of those who aren’t familiar with the term, it’s like this early 20^th century advertising 

illustration. There were many different styles (mine is narrower and taller). My current house, like the last one, does not have a lot of built-in cabinets, so my Hoosier is a godsend. It houses my crockpot, some small kitchen equipment, dried fruit, spices and seasonings (including the weird medieval and 18^th century ones like musk, and the chiles and chile powders because this is New Mexico, after all), and it also serves as the liquor cabinet. I believe it’s over a century old. It will outlast me, and that’s an oddly comforting thought.

Maybe that’s why shabby chic furnishings, antiques and genealogy are popular: they spell stability. And I think the appeal of historical romance novels lies in the desire for things that last:  a long line of ancestors and a house inhabited by the same family for decades or centuries, heirlooms, enduring love.

But even if we don’t trace our ancestry back more than a generation and aren’t rooted in the same soil that nurtured our great-great-great-grandparents, we are still part of the continuity of centuries. I have my father’s heavy bone structure, my mother’s singing voice, my father’s aptitude for special relationships (you know, that thing about what direction gears are turning? Didn’t get that from Mum), and my mother’s skill with the language. My father and I both inherited his mother’s chin. I don’t know where my nose came from. No one in any of the family pictures has it. Maybe one of my great-greats in Somerset, England, Ireland, Sweden or parts unknown contributed it. Our roots go back a long, long way.

Arundel Castle, home of the Dukes of Norfolk

*The owner’s manual blithely assumes the owner will do this at intervals. To do so, it’s necessary to remove the oven door, either have long arms or crawl into the oven, remove some weird-shaped screws at the very back, lift out the steel plate that forms the bottom of the oven, clean the gas apertures, replace the plate, re-light the oven pilot, and replace the door. No doubt some people can do it. I can’t. I’ll happily pay a gas stove repair person to come out every five years or so rather than buy a new, complicated range that would have a life expectancy of twelve or thirteen years.