Stuffed

Just about 9 years ago, as I was packing up my apartment in Queens to move to my own place, an old friend gave me some sage advice. “Think about what you want to take with you. Surround yourself only with things that you truly love. You don’t have to cart the last fifty years to another county.”

I did hear what she said. Unfortunately I was convinced I loved it all. Or thought I should love it all. Living in small NYC spaces for nearly 20 years, much of my precious stuff had been sentenced to boxed lives under beds, in the back of closets, at my mother’s.  Now I was going to have enough space for it all and I gleefully envisioned a Christmas-like reunion with my stuff.

So along with me came two full sets of china, more vases than a sane person needs, an unwieldy collection of decorative cups and saucers from various dead people, hundreds of books including text books from college, souvenirs from trips taken as long ago as 1965, a large collection of 45s and LPs most of which I had not played in years, and scads of beginning-to-get-gross metal paper clips, dozens of on-their-way-to-being dried up pens, and personalized manila envelopes rescued from an office I had worked in years before that had closed. And that’s merely a tip of the iceberg, I am sorry (and embarrassed) to say – but it’s a taste to illustrate the breadth and depth of my stuff.

When my mom passed away three years later, I added a lot more stuff to the mix. I tried to be careful and discerning as we sorted, discarded, and/or sold, but this stuff was my mother’s things and the idea of divesting myself of anything belonging to her felt like I was discarding not only the item, but her. That would never do. So my sister and I took turns choosing first – jewelry, china, depression glass, lead crystal, cups and saucers, unused dish towels and pot holders.  We discovered vestiges of our childhoods lovingly packed away in old trunks and squealed with delight over my first Easter coat and bonnet, matching jumpers our grandmother had made, dresses we wore our first days of school. We divided those items up, the ones that weren’t yellowed or torn, dreaming of future grandchildren. Slowly the small piles in each of our childhood bedrooms became full car loads of more stuff to be lugged to our respective homes.

It was hard to assimilate all mom’s stuff into my apartment. I took care of some of the breakables by appropriating her china cabinet which fit nicely against an available wall, its dark wood closely matching my own furniture. But I should also mention that I inherited most of the items that were already housed in that china cabinet – a huge collection of crystal ware given to my parents as anniversary gifts in the early 40s. So I stacked things a little higher than she ever had in said china cabinet and hoped for no earthquakes.

Other items never found a permanent home, unless you count a corner of my dining area as permanent. There sits my mother’s sewing machine – at first claimed by a niece who fancied a career as a fashion designer. When she changed her mind about her major, it was claimed by my daughter, who fantasized learning enough about sewing to tailor her own clothes. Even though claimed, however, it never actually made its way to any place she’s lived. Keeping the sewing machine company in that corner have been mom’s old slide projector, boxes of old slides, mom’s really old regular 8 movie projector, and boxes of old 8 mm movies.

Not long ago, a designer who’s helping me to renovate my kitchen, came over to survey my stuff to ensure sufficient cabinet space.  She looked at me gravely and said, “You have to edit.” My throat started to close. “Edit??” I gasped. “I’ll come over and help you,” she announced, breezily. I harrumphed.  Over my dead body.   

After she left, however, I looked around.  Was I really that in love with all of this? I admitted to myself that the little collection of antique machines in the corner irritates me. Not only does it collect dust, it fights for space with my jewelry-making supplies (another story of stuff). I had made a half-hearted effort to deal with some of it last year when I sorted through mom’s slides and sent the more memorable ones off to be transferred to a CD. What was now stopping me from chucking the rest of them along with the projector (the bulb of which disintegrated when I turned it on)? Not long before she died, mom had made the herculean effort of transferring all the 8mm films from my sister’s and my childhoods to videotape. Why could I not dump the original film and put the decrepit projector out of its misery? 

I opened one cupboard, which had been specifically targeted for editing. There were at least a dozen generic clear glass vases of various shapes and sizes that gained access as receptacles for various bouquets over the years. I had no particular attachment to these;  maybe I could part with some of them if they were duplicates. Heaven forbid I not have the right size vase for all the cut flowers I don’t bring home.

There were another eight or nine bud vases. One of them featured an etched “H” from my former husband’s last name. Have I ever put a bud in a bud vase? More to the point, how long has it been since my last name started with “H”?  There’s an old Avon bottle, black with flowers, shaped like a vase that I’ve carted from apartment to apartment for thirty-five years, and never used. My former husband gave that to me, too.  I tossed the marriage long ago and never looked back, why can’t I toss the relics from it?

Now it got harder. I picked up a teeny-tiny vase with a lily of the valley on one side. I don’t remember who gave it to me but I know it was because the giver was aware how much I love lilies of the valley.  It would seem very ungrateful to get rid of that, now wouldn’t it. In the back corner was a small pink and white ceramic baby shoe, made for me by a dear old friend when my daughter was born. It had been “customized” with my daughter’s name, her birth date, and her birth weight.  It had not held a plant since the first one it held in 1976. To get rid of that would be akin to getting rid of both my daughter and my old friend.  A two-fer.

I closed the door. I would make no decisions that night. I needed to figure out by what criteria I would honestly be able to determine what stayed, what went, and why.  And whether I could do it without guilt or remorse…….

Next up….. anthropomorphism, or do stuffed animals have feelings?