On the way home from the dentist today, sitting atop the public trash recepticle at the corner of Hayes and Octavia Streets, was a dirty Hello Kitty toaster – which totally reminded me that Ggreg Taylor’s Hello Kitty Toaster was stolen last year! So, I nabbed it and it’s now sitting on my computer desk. I wonder who it belonged to – if it was Ggreg’s missing toaster?
Which led me to muse on the nature of posession. How important are things, really? I lost everything I owned back in 1994 when I moved back to California from Virginia, except my duffel bag of clothes, and my camera. Those were the things which were, and still are important to me. All those other things I had collected in my life up to that point where just gone, sold by my ex-lover sight unseen to an auction house for $250.00. I have to admit that at 28, that was a bit hard to take, and it wasn’t for many months that I was able to forgive him for that betrayal.
But what value did those things really have? They were a tangible marker of my existence. Of course, many of the things I had had then had been previously owned, so they were also markers of the existence of others. I never knew most of the people from whom I acquired my things – antique stores, and collectibles shops, thrift stores, and department stores had all had commerce with me and whomever they had purchased the things from. Those things are like the currents in a river, flowing toward the oblivion of the ocean, passed on from hand to hand until they recede out of sight, leaving only a memory. Maybe that’s the real value of things – they serve as useful landmarks for the passing of our lives, reminders of loves and hates and meals and sharing and intimacy. Is that the proper way to view the things in one’s life?
Is there anything more? Are some things worth having for their own sake, to be reminders of our past, our heritage? Or our our memories enough, enduring? Having that garnet ring of my grandfather’s doesn’t increase my love for him, nor does it add a single moment to the length of my life. Perhaps we are all really meant to “consider the lilies of the field,” and just live our lives, holding on not to the past, but to the present, letting the things come into and pass through our lives without attachments.
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