I recently came across this personal essay written twenty-five years ago (I have about two hundred essays that need to be re-read, then tossed or kept in a "keeper" folder). I enjoyed it, and hope you will too. And now my readers can easily appreciate how much I need to get rid of before I move to a smaller place, including the written word by yours truly. sg
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In our guestroom hangs a photograph that astonishes me every
time I stop to look at it—sepia-tinted grandparents in their sepia-tinted living
room in the late thirties: Grandfather is sitting on the chair that today takes
up a corner in
our living room;
Grandmother is standing by the same fireplace-bench by
our dining room wall; tiny candlesticks decorate the mantel—the
same candlesticks that now sit on
my desk.
Come to think of it, the desk was my grandfather’s, too.
There’s no getting out from under the mass of things I
inherited. We still use old-fashioned lace-edged linens on our bureaus, a
phenomenon that my husband comments about whenever I change them twice a year for
a freshly laundered-and-ironed set. “Can you even get dresser scarves any more?”
“I doubt it—if they’re new, anyway. Only in a vintage or
antique store.”
The napkins we use for celebratory dinners are almost as big
as pillowcases. They were handmade from damask, given as wedding gifts seventy
years ago to my mother. At Thanksgiving I iron what I need, but that is the
only time I use them in an entire calendar year. For fifty-one weeks they
hibernate in my ironing bag, waiting for their moment in the world—like the
patients in the movie, Awakenings, who
come to life on drugs. These are old geezer napkins—yellowed from time and
frayed around the edges, and getting thin, too.
Sometimes I playfully think of my hand-me-downs as elderly
in-laws. Although I didn’t know them originally, they have ingratiated
themselves over the years as they live under my roof and abide by my
rules.
Sometimes I am tickled to be part of this ancestral chain of
merchandise. With pride I dig out the silver candelabra, hoist down the
porcelain cups, and unwrap the soup tureen. I boast about my heirloom dining-room
table handmade for the family two hundred years ago, and point out with pride my
cherished console table belonging to a great-grandmother. I can tick off
stories about family stuff in every room—couch, chairs, paintings,
figurines—each with a family connection.
Other times I feel sorry for myself. How in the hell did I
get saddled with so many hand-me-downs? Wouldn’t it be fun to throw everything
away and buy all new items? How thrilling it would be to go on an Ikea spree,
or even one at Target. Cheap, bright, maybe poorly made—but new! Not to use anyone
else’s anything! My grown kids have
all furnished their homes with things they have selected. How liberated they
seem. Would I even know how to shop for furniture?
Just like us oldsters who require more maintenance work on
our teeth and bodies now than when we were young, caring for antiques can add
responsibility to our lives, too. I was shocked recently to see the trouble my
sister takes with her heirloom sterling flatware. She literally washes and
dries each individual fork tine and lets the forks sit out on her counter for twenty-four
hours so they are thoroughly and completely dry. I refuse to pamper my
possessions. I wash, dry and toss my flatware back into its silver-clothed
wooden box and slam the lid down until the next time I scrounge for what I
need. I polish it rarely.
Maybe I’m careless with my things to show them who has the
upper hand. I have to admit that a part of me is secretly happy when I see
things wearing out. A pillowcase springs a hole. Do I try to mend it? No! Just
because my grandmother hemstitched it is no reason to be sad. Instead, I rip it
up to make new dust cloths, congratulating myself for not being nostalgic. As
the backing of my oriental rug appears with wear (giving the appearance of lint
flecks needing to be vacuumed), I get out an array of deep rose, purple, and
green magic markers and color in the threadbare places. Sure, my rug is valuable,
but I am so sick of it! I have never lived in a house where it wasn’t lurking in
one of the rooms. I fantasize sometimes how much fun it would be to roll it up
and push it down my hillside driveway, then watch it roll away like the runaway
gingerbread man. Only I wouldn’t chase it.
My husband loves to remind me that “Nothing lasts forever.” There’s
a positive side effect of attrition through moldering. I will probably never
need new things, but at least, eventually, I will have fewer things to care
for. And, if there’s any justice at all, my aging household goods will wear out
just about the time that I do. I hope my kids can just take the furniture to
the second-hand-store and never look back . . . except for the dining room
table, the hand carved chairs, the linens woven by appointment to the queen,
the old tiffany forks, the . . .
