August 17, 2005

• Attachment to Objects

  My parents tried to teach me that things are only “things” and that
  they aren’t the things we should love.  At least they paid lip
  service to the attempt.

  I loved my first “jewelry box.”  It was thin cardboard covered
  with pretty paper, a cube about 3″ to a side, just a box within a box
  with a knob on one side of the inner box that made it a drawer to slide
  in and out of the outer box.

  When my not-cousin…

  ***digression:  This girl, my not-cousin, was one of a pair of
  twins that belonged to the woman who was at the time traveling with my
  ex-uncle Jack.  At the time, he wasn’t yet my ex-uncle,
  but it was within days or weeks of my mother’s disowning him.  I
  don’t think I’ve told that story.  If not, it’s an oversight I
  must correct.***

  …when one of the blonde twins tried to open my jewelry box by tearing
  the top off instead of pulling out the drawer, I was devastated. 
  Mama thought that she “fixed” it with Scotch tape, but Mama wasn’t a
  Virgo.  It was never the same.  She also tried to shame me
  for crying over the loss of a mere trinket and being angry at my
  “cousin” over an accident.

  On my first day in first grade, I carried another treasured object to
  school.  It was a shoulder bag in the shape of a doll.  Her
  full skirt, enclosed at the bottom, was the purse.  A flip-up top
  held her torso and head.  A mean little boy grabbed the torso as
  he ran by and tore it off.  I cried all the way home.

  Both parents lectured me about not getting attached to things, mere things. 
  Mama added some guilt to my grief by reminding me that she’d tried to
  talk me out of taking the doll purse to school.  But their
  lectures had little impact.  I remember the admonitions, but I
  also recall my father’s tears of grief and angry words when Mama
  accidentally smashed his treasured fiddle, and her long-lived grief
  over a number of treasured objects that were destroyed in a flood.

  Like my parents, I understand the futility of becoming attached to
  transitory things.  Also like my parents, my understanding has led
  me to only a partial attainment of detachment.  I think my metaphysical
  explorations have taken me beyond what they taught me to an
  understanding of something my mother, at least, never grasped: 
  the futility of becoming attached to people.  When I’d mourn for
  some lost or destroyed object, she’d tell me that I should reserve such
  feelings for people, that things just weren’t worth my tears.

  It has been years since I have shed tears over a broken relationship or
  the loss of a material treasure, but today I was impelled to recognize
  that I haven’t transcended all my material attachments.  It
  started with an empty carafe.  As I reached up into the cupboard
  for the coffee, I said to Doug, “Why am I always making coffee? 
  Where does it go?”

  After he reminded me that I’m the only one here who drinks it, I looked
  down into the reflective inside of the thermal carafe and said, “We
  used to have a bigger coffeepot.”  Then for an insane moment I
  went into a nostagic fugue remembering the copper teakettle and big
  yellow enamel pot and black filter cone I used at Elvenhurst. 
  Making coffee then, when we were off the power grid, took longer and
  was more work.  Having hot coffee throughout the day was also more
  problematic.

  Even though we still don’t have running water, the electric appliances
  make the process much easier.  The drip coffeemaker does most of
  the work, and does it quickly, more quickly that my propane stove
  did.  The thermal carafe keeps the coffee hot for hours, and after
  it cools the microwave warms it fast.  At Elvenhurst I had the
  choice of leaving the pot on the woodstove (in winter) and having hot
  burnt coffee on tap, or reheating the pot and usually forgetting and
  letting it boil.  Burnt coffee now is a thing of the past, so I
  really have no justification for nostalgia.  But if there’s one
  thing I understand about psychology, it’s that feelings are not
  rational.

  Maybe
  I’m making progress.  I have no nostalgia for my old leather
  shoulder bag, the purse I carried for over a quarter century.  The
  photo at left appeared a few years ago, illustrating a blog about the various things I do for a living. 
  It illustrated thrift and “making do.”  The antique Navajo rug
  came from a
  flea market for $5.00.  The old warm fuzzy booties were in a
  thrift shop
  for a buck or two and I repaired their holey soles with camo duct
  tape.  The shoulder strap of that old bag had been repaired with
  duct tape, too, and the tape camouflaged with colorful scarves. 
  The bag itself was something I shoplifted back when shoplifting was a
  major part of what I did for a living.

  While I carried that bag I had two husbands and a few lovers.  I
  lived in seven different homes.  Except for the strap, which just
  couldn’t take all the weight it had to bear and being hung on a hook
  when I wasn’t carrying it, it was tough and durable, which I
  appreciated.  It was also big.  A few times when we were
  hungry, it held as much as 3 pounds of sausages.  On the minus
  side, it seldom matched my shoes, and as it aged it increasingly
  detracted from my image.  I replaced it a couple of years ago with
  a bigger black Capezio bag I got for a buck in a thrift shop.  It
  won’t last as long as the old one did, but then I probably won’t last
  that long, either.

  I guess I’ve been digressing, but I didn’t get very far
  off-topic.  My point about the old buffalo hide bag is that
  although I’d been attached to it for a long time (close to thirty
  years), I retired it with barely a qualm when I found something that
  suited me better.  Maybe that’s progress, maybe it’s just change.

  

  • 4:42 pm
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