The poster said quite blithely that you could and should judge people on their possessions--that if a person cared about having things then they could not be trusted to care about people.
I shouted at the computer sceen: So unfair! Not true! I love people but I also enjoy having some things.
This is an issue that I've been faced with more than ever during this difficult past year when I've had so little money that I've gone weeks without toilet paper. It has been a time when meals were very thin indeed; sometimes I have been hungry. And the few people who have spoken with me have asked me why I didn't sell this thing or that thing.
I believe that they meant kindly but they didn't understand: the things that they said I should sell have little monetary value but their presence in my home makes me feel comforted, makes me feel as though somehow at least one little piece of my world isn't in the center of the maelstrom that is my life. Yes, I could sell that pretty plate from my dining room for $2 but the cost to my peace of mind would be much higher.
It isn't a matter of greed. It's a matter of continuity and of visual confirmation that things are okay, that things will continue to be okay, that somehow there is still hope.
When I was a kid, we moved a lot. A lot. My mother would give me a small box and tell me that I could take only what I could fit into it and nothing more; everything else would be left for the trash man. It was often heartbreaking, and thus I could never allow myself to fall in love with dolls or really enjoy a toy because I knew I might not be able to keep it forever. Perhaps I still live in fear of the existential pressure of that small box.
As a young adult on my own, I still moved house often. Before I ever unpacked the necessities, I went right to decorating. I hung curtains, put pillows on the sofa, and placed a picture or two on the walls. Only then did I bother with cleaning the bathroom and putting the kitchen to rights--those things just didn't matter as much as setting my heart at rest. If some space in the house was pretty and pleasing, I didn't mind living almost anywhere. I still feel that way.
Things can give a sense of belonging. And sometimes they fulfill a sense of simple longing.
A few years ago when I was preparing for a yard sale, a family member noticed my collection of hair barrettes; she said I was too old for kidstuff and that I didn't need those things and that I should sell them to someone who could use and enjoy them. I gulped. I held my breath. I emptied the drawer of barrettes. I sold them. And later when I was alone, I cried. The one who had really needed those barrettes was me, even if I didn't wear them.
Without consciously realizing that I was doing so, little by little I re-filled that dresser drawer with pretty hair jewelry--barrettes and hair sticks and scrunchies. Dollar store stuff, nothing fancy, certainly nothing that cost more than a dollar or two. But it was shiny and pretty and satisfying. Why do I need it? Ever since I can remember I was told that I was ugly, that my sister was the pretty one. And I remember that no one would brush my hair even when I was little--I desperately wished for that; it seemed like the greatest sort of caring. Now I'm an old lady, and I still sometimes wish someone would brush my hair.
I'd rather not believe that my family was unkind, and I do know that they were busy dealing with troubles of their own. Things happen, and we have to move on. I can't go back to being a little kid but I can soothe the child in me with a barrette every now and then. I don't have to wear them; I just like imagining. And, yes, sometimes I give them away to real children because they need to feel pretty as well.
There are other things I keep. One of the important things is a feathered owl mask hidden in the bottom of my dresser drawer. No one else knows it's there but I do and I know why.
Women of a certain age might remember a long ago fantasy TV show; there was an episode that took place at a fanciful costume ball where two characters wore feathered owl masks. I watched that romantic show with more than a little longing.
Only in my mid-20's I had become incurably disabled and I was housebound. Realistically I knew that I would never go to a costume ball or even on a normal date; I knew that my life was doomed to disappointment in the future and there was nothing I could do to change that. But I could still dream; and when I found a feathered owl mask at a flea market, I paid the dollar for it without thinking twice. The mask was enough. It was my deep and unfulfilled wish but it was also a dream I could hold in my hands anyway. More than that, it was my secret defiance against everything that kept me chained and unable to fight otherwise.
The dresser that holds my barrettes and hides my owl mask is another important thing. It originally belonged to my grandmother. Granny was a tall skinny woman who had to wring from life what little it would give her. She was never pretty, never had a chance to be. That's what my mother remembered about her mother-in-law, and she often wondered why on earth Granny had chosen to buy the gently feminine dresser that didn't suit her; after all, Mother said tartly, Granny was so tall that she had to bend over to see her face in the mirror.
I know why Granny chose that dresser. She needed it just the way I do. Maybe she wanted more than life gave her. Maybe that dresser was her fist raised in defiance of those who couldn't see that her as anything other than an old hardscrabble immigrant farmer's wife. But Granny could dream. Her dresser is proof. Those small secret symbols make the hard corners of life less sharp, more easy to bear. It doesn't change reality at all but it invites a dream and encourages a hopeful smile. Granny's dresser reminds me that I should dream, too, despite knowing that dreams don't truly come true; it's healing to wish and to ponder.
Sometimes things aren't just things. They are symbols. They quietly remind us to endure, to have courage, to keep the faith, to keep going, to reach out in hope.
In this past terrible year and a half, I have had no money at all--not for necessities and certainly not for niceties. I've held on hard and gritted my teeth while I felt like grim death. I have done absolutely nothing for myself beyond survival, and sometimes little enough of that. I reached a point where I had no hope and where I couldn't allow my self to wish. It hurt too much. Recently I realized that this was wrong. No matter how poor I am, too much of doing without joyful things is wrong.
I became aware of this when I saw a barrette on the main page on eBay. It was a China cheapie--a shiny rhinestone snowflake, and it was on auction for a ridiculously low price. The auction was ending within seconds. On a whim, I bid. And I won the pretty barrette for seven cents. Seven cents. It felt like seven hundred dollars. The good it did me was worth much more.
Oh, how I enjoyed waiting and watching for that snowflake barrette to come in the mail. It was something to look forward to and that was so important because I had had nothing to anticipate for such a long time. When it arrived, I was stunned at how pretty it was. The barrette stayed on my worktable for a long time just so I could look at it every day to admire (to be honest, it's still there glittering under the light). And little by little, I've been recovering the drive to keep fighting.
So that's why I was upset by reading that thoughtless online comment. We have no right to judge others, and we certainly should have nothing to say about what other people choose to own. Sometimes they actually need the seemingly unimportant things they hold. In truth, we can only understand others by listening to their stories and by watching what they do. That's something we should all afford to do, and it's something we should make time for.
Sometimes someone's stuff is the essence of their courage and the basis for their hope. No one should shame them for it.
Life is good.
No comments:
Post a Comment