i am diving into the worlds of facebook marketplace, ebay, poshmark, craig’s list. we are spending long days in the basement – going through, organizing, separating out that which is to be kept, that which is to be sold, so much of which is to be donated. thirty-five years – in the same house – is a long time to accumulate things and there are many boxes and giant plastic bins to open…and…this is not our first rodeo down there. it’s been nasty weather and it’s negative-whatever outside so this a perfect time for this. i know that any stopping of the momentum will – yes – stop the momentum. so we don’t stop.
on a shelf unit with many books of many colors, i came upon a collection of volumes – all ten of them, making a complete set. they are the 1908/1909/1910 copyrighted gold-leaf-gilt-edged editions of “the bible and its story – taught by picture lessons”. there are beautiful penned illustrations throughout, published by ira hiller (ny). it is a significant collection. but not one that i want to keep. i don’t remember the backstory – where or who these came from. and i know that, though i have not once opened them to read, there is someone ‘out there’ who would want to add this to their personal collection. and so, i will sell it. with the exception of a little water damage on volume 6’s back cover, it’s in quite excellent condition. research will help me set a price – i’ll not ask for top dollar, though, for i want to move this out and into someone else’s hands for their own home library.
it’s an interesting predicament – setting prices. even with research, it all seems somewhat arbitrary. a thing is only – truly – worth what someone else will pay for it, i am reminded. and so, i keep that in mind as i hold things in my hand, maybe photograph them for memory-sake and place them on the dining room table for an ad photo shoot, the writing of a description, pricing and uploading. i wonder what value someone else will have for these things – so many things – that were mine but that need to move on.
for value is a funny thing. for some, it is in the name of the maker, the label tucked in the collar, the brand on the purse or the jacket or the furniture piece or the vehicle. for some, it is the gilded antique, the collectible, the museum piece. for some, it is the barbie doll or the hummels or the annual dated ornament. for some, it is the scrap of paper found in an old purse with toddler-print that says “i love you”. for some, it is the yoyo quilt your grandmother made; the one in which you recognize the fabric of clothes you once wore. in amish tradition, “an object cared for in a home can turn into a shining thing.” (sue bender)
the things i or we choose to keep may not be the festooned bric-a-bracs of someone else’s sensibility. they may be much simpler, more thready and less dollar-attached. they have old narrative worn into their object-souls and – even now, decades later maybe – they can still elicit an array of emotions. the relationships, the art form, life’s riverdance all woven into the things we may choose to keep.
we keep unearthing, unboxing, moving items from one spot to another. “life’s all about moving your patches around,” and i believe this to be true. it’s all fluid. we will keep working until we finish the first pass through of the stuff-of-life and then – and only then – will we be able to start the second pass through.
“simplify and then go deeper, making a commitment to what remains.”
*****
read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY
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