Gatherers

Sometimes, when I'm feeling nostalgic, or restless, or just plain lost, I walk around my home and pick things up -- here's a very small round, smooth stone-like container with a crystal inside, given to me by a now long-lost friend many years ago in Kansas City; here's a small animal skull I fished out of a bin labeled "miscellaneous skulls" in a store in SoHo; here's a little bisque figurine I found buried in the dirt in West Virginia. There's something about the tangible nature of these objects -- holding them and looking at them -- that brings me great comfort -- they remind me of who I am, of where I've been, and of the people and friends I've had the great good fortune to know. They somehow bring me back to me.

That said, I am not really a collector -- I find "collections" to be rather cloying -- shelves and shelves of essentially the same thing -- frogs, or elephants or angels or salt & pepper shakers or what have you. Once people find out you collect something, you can never get away from it -- every birthday, holiday, you're bombarded with more "Precious Moments" or "Beanie Babies" until you've no choice but to turn over whole rooms of your home to your collection, with special display cases and lighting. I suppose it's something to do -- something to occupy your mind so you don't have to think about where your life went so wrong that all you can do is sit in a room full of "Cabbage Patch Kids" and weep for your long lost youth.

No, I am a scavenger of sorts, a gatherer. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist, and that fascination with "unearthing" things -- old letters, recipes, notebooks, objects, bones -- has stayed with me my whole life. Everything has a story to tell (it's up to us, the gatherers, to discover what that story is).

I have moved quite a bit over the years, and have gotten rid of a lot of stuff. A "rule" has sort of emerged regarding what to get rid of and what to keep: if an object has a good story or a good memory attached to it, or if it just makes me really happy, then I keep it. My house is full of good stories.

P.S. First saw this beautiful video here. These three blogs -- even cleveland, Squid ProQuo and Letters of Note all have inspired me to think about ephemera (love that word!) and collecting and gathering.