The Things
h
by Donald Hall
in The New Yorker
January 4, 2010
When I walk in my house I see pictures,
bought long ago, framed and hanging
—de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore
—that I’ve cherished and stared at for years,
yet my eyes keep returning to the masters
of the trivial: a white stone perfectly round,
tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell,
a broken great-grandmother’s rocker,
a dead dog’s toy—valueless, unforgettable
detritus that my children will throw away
as I did my mother’s souvenirs of trips
with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens,
and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 11:53 PM
5 Comments:
my mother’s souvenirs of trips ... bundles of cards from her mother Kate
I would never throw such things away.
Kishke, you've hit a nerve. This question of throwing things away has been a big one for me for some time. Over the past four years or so I worked with a personal organizer. One of the things he shared with me was the idea that memories need not always be kept ina physical form. Sometimes you don't have to keep an actual card or book to keep the memory behind it. Right after the Shabbos which ended Shiva I spent about four hours going through mostly papers in my parents' bedroom. For some of the time my father worked beside me. We had different shitot. I couldn't help but hold and scrutize each indidual page, be it a catalogue, or a calendar, or an old newspaper clipping, or a card. (The card about hope, which I posted a scan of recently was mixed in a pile in that room. It was sent to my mother from Sloan-Kettering Hospital, where she was treated for breast cancer several years ago.) The thing is that it's a personal call. My first inclination about cards and the like is like yours. But I believe that in the end it is not simple.
I know what you mean. My wife is my personal organizer, or she tries to be. I resist manfully. I cannot believe the things she throws or gives away. I find that without the physical reminder, memory is often weak and sometimes non-existent.
It's a rough call. While I relate more personally to your P.O.V, your wife's viewpoint is not without its charm or merit. There are issues of space, order, aesthetics that matter in life. Somehow the need to hold on to objects relating to precious memories has to dovetail living in an ordered world. You reminded me of the pshat that a kallah walks around a chassan because a woman surrounds a man with a sense of order that does come readily to man alone...
Absolutely. I live in a clean, beautiful home only b/c of her, and boy, do I appreciate it.
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