STUCK ON STUFF LEFT BEHIND

I’m reading a good, if slightly disjointed, book by an author that I like, and every page contains word nuggets of beauty, obiter snippets, that I want to copy and write out, and share, and savor. This one struck me particularly:

Maybe I shouldn’t be so attached to objects either. But everyone keeps dying, leaving stuff behind, objects I can’t usually get rid of. And I enjoy the company of the dead. They are so quiet. They know things I don’t know. The dead leave clues, and life is a puzzle of trying to read and understand these mysterious hints before the game is over. Even if these clues are not coming from the dead. Even if I’m making the whole thing up. —Samantha Hunt, from The Unwritten Book

And it struck me because it’s true…we are surrounded by the stuff the dead leave behind. Objects that have sentimental value, or real value, or trigger memories in a way that means it’s hard to let them go. I have a tendency to keep stuff for a really long time, then go through manic phases of purging, when I finally reach the point where letting go of them is easier. My kids are constantly pushing my ability to let go…they ask for things of mine all the time: jewelry, clothing, household accessories…yesterday it was stickers. And I’m not even dead yet. 😀

I have a box of sheets of stickers that I collected when I was a pre-teen. WHY I still have them is a mystery. Some I kept because they were pretty, or cute, or had some meaning for me. It’s the same reason why I never actually used them. Once you stick them on something, they lose all their anticipatory value. But some of them were silly and meaningless and they just happened to be kept in a box, in a cabinet, in a house full of stuff.

Martin mentioned something to Karin about how he had been looking for good stickers to put on his PC cover and I made the mistake of saying “Stickers? I have stickers” and they both descended upon me. They were thrilled and they each took a big pile of them. Others went into the trash because they were no longer sticky or were not something that appealed to any of us. There was a whole envelope of “calendar stickers” that made me laugh. It’s not enough to write down your appointments, apparently, you have to include a smiley face sticker that says “APPOINTMENT” in cartoon letters, to make it really special. Why I kept them is beyond me. And they went back in the box, that went back in the cabinet, haha!

Every room in our house has an object in it that the dead left behind. I have my paternal grandmother’s bell pull and sideboard in the front hallway, little antique tables in side halls, chairs from Anders’ parents; paintings, books, clocks, things. They add a layer of love from the people that owned them previously, and a smile when my gaze lingers on them. I hope someday that some of my belongings, including the ones from MY lost ones, bring a smile to the faces of my children. I don’t expect they will keep everything, of course, no one could, but some special pieces, some memory triggers, to live on in the lives and homes of people I care about, or that bring happiness to someone who comes upon them in a secondhand store someday, that would be nice.

Mood: contemplative
Music: REM—Exhuming McCarthy