The Artichoke Gang
From sentiment to refuse
A funny thing happened to me yesterday. I’ve just started selling collectible books on Etsy, so I’ve been hanging out in second hand bookstores more than usual.
Anyway, while I was fossicking for rare hardbacks, I noticed a couple of paperback editions of my first two books in the fiction section. I slid them out and had a glance through, as one is want to do with their abandonned book babies… and I saw that both copies had been autographed by me to a couple who had been long time friends. Not just a signature, but a hearfelt message as well.
I’m not going to lie; I felt slightly wounded. Did I mean so little to them?
It took a minute, but eventally I found the humour in it. What are the chances I would ever have stumbled across these books for sale? And anyway, of course people will eventually get rid of crap. I mean, I wrote that novel about fifteen years ago. They probably didn’t even read it.
Then as usual, I got curious. When does an object go from having sentimental value to “this is just weighing me down — stick it in the trash”? And what does that say about our relationship with the person/people it reminded us of?
I mean, most memento’s have an association with people? Right?(OK. Animals and places etc. as well... but for the sake of a discussion, stay with me!)
Two years after my divorce, I finally said goodbye to my wedding gift cards (my wedding was 36 years before that). And yet, I still hold onto letters I received from girlfriends when I was fifteen, as well as paper flyers (remember those things!) for party’s I went to at seventeen, and a badge that says “Artichoke” from when I was twenty. I don’t even remember what the deal was with the artichoke badge, except I can picture the guy who gave it to me and the fact that it somehow made us a gang. I haven’t seen him since then, but he was a good friend at the time. And without the Artichoke badge, it’s likely he will slip slowly from my memory.
Mementos and objects from the past are like an external hard drive for my memory. The same as photos. And I’m loathe to let them go because I might never be able to capture that feeling again without them. And those feelings make me who I am.
But it’s not that way for everyone. My partner keeps nothing at all from his past in the way of physical objects. NOTHING! Seems he doesn’t need the prompts. He’s content with his brain’s internal filing process.
That almost scares me.
I find that parting with something that has had sentimental value is a petit mort — a little death.
Some of us never do say goodbye to any of our physical reminders. We die under their weight and leave our poor children and other relatives to deal with them, which also seems entirely unfair.
Shedding as we go along makes absolute sense. And practical considerations come into it: downsizing, moving, fires and floods.
But given the most conducive of circumstances to keep crap, let me ask you… When do you let go? And when you do, have you let go, a bit, of the person too — or the part of you that connected to them? Is it a case of “I’m done with that now?”
I’m kinda thinking it is.
So maybe my first instinct to be sad and hurt at my book orphans languishing on the musty shelves was a reasonable reaction.
I’d love to ask my friends about it. But wouldn’t that be awkward!
