An Apologia (for a somewhat symptomatic behaviour)
(for Mary -- because you asked for it)
Up on a small ladder, rather precariously balancing between the inside and the outside of the study room closet, I stuck my head further in, to examine the piles of papers on the only shelf, buried in dust and darkness. Pathological hoarder, I was cornered by the red-alarm lack of space in my work area and had to -- very reasonably -- make a decision to get rid of some old things and make room for the new ones. I reached and dragged closer an inconspicuous-looking plastic bag, full of loose papers -- my old TESL stuff, it turned out, which could be packed into a box and moved down to the basement; underneath the bag, though, my hand felt several thicker, glossy sheets, which turned out to be: a 2001 calendar! I pulled them out completely, stepping down from the ladder triumphantly -- I finally got something that I can chuck away, for good! (This doesn't happen often; I mostly just move things from one place to another, avoiding any definite partings; as a result, 1) my living space becomes more and more cramped, and 2) I never have the therapeutic benefits of "getting rid" of something).
As I was walking towards the recycling bin, I looked through the calendar sheets, trying to remember why I wanted to keep these ones. I probably liked the reproductions of Klimt's colorful, filigreed, fluid feminine figures, I reasoned, admiring them again, and that was partly true. But then I happened to flip the sheets over, to where the actual calendar grid is drawn with days and dates, and I understood right away. I had written little notes and reminders in the squares for some days -- a hairdresser's appointment, a private ESL tutorial, a Graduate Committee meeting where I was a student rep, an appointment with someone called Joyce (? no memory whatsoever is left of that person)... But at the centre of that outdated universe where the 10-year-younger me existed busily was the square which read "Zlata i Branko." I went through all the remaining sheets, and the square of the first Saturday of each month had the same written in it. What prehistory this was. At that time (and this was the case for a couple of years), I spoke with my parents only once a month because calling long-distance was very expensive both for me (a poverty-line foreign student) and for them (in a post-war and recently-NATO-bombed country). So we had a deal. Every first Saturday in a month was our "conversational Saturday" and exactly at noon the phone would ring, and it would be them. We then had about 10 minutes to compress a whole month into.
What an essentially different world that was. A world before there was Skype. A world in which I was still a child of my parents. A world in which I still had a mother.
And that is precisely why I had kept those sheets, and why I never made it to the recycling bin. In fact, I never do, when it comes to things like these. I have loads of old garments -- mine, or my mother's -- most of which are not worn any more and never will be; or dozens of pens, used by either my mother or my father years ago; a small piggy figurine, sneaked into my suitcase the first time I crossed the Atlantic by my brother (under the pretext, which he revealed to me later, that the piggy "wanted to hit the road a little"); a Kinder-egg smiling teddy with an "ich liebe dich" sign on his chest, which I "borrowed" from my cousin's then infant daughter, as well as possibly hundreds of old notebooks, diaries, letters, postcards, memorabilia, and souvenirs which include a whole series of small white paper bags for pills from my mother's pharmacy, a slightly torn fan with Chinese motifs, and a non-functional purse umbrella that used to reside in my mother's purse (which, incidentally, I also have; there are three Bronhi candies in one of the pockets).
And this is only one tiny fraction of everything I have stacked in various storage areas, which most people would call the stuff of "nostalgia." But it's not exactly nostalgia. It is not the pure feeling of nostos because it is not about wanting to return home. It is, if you will, a whole mini philosophy of how to be. To be fully in the now, I need the bits and fragments of what led to it, and no, it isn't just "the past" because it is the living fabric of my life, which I love, which sprouts from my nails and eyelashes, which has roots beyond and before.
The Kinder-egg "ich liebe dich" dude, for example, stands for all the rain of wonderment, given to me by my cousin's daughter for the brief spell when we lived together, and I like to remember it, and feel it. It doesn't make me feel sad; on the contrary, it makes me walk with a bounce; it makes me look for it, and produce it, and sprinkle it on those immediately around. The Atlantic-crossing piggy is the life-giving playfulness that is my brother, whose spark I keep in a safe place. I like to be aware of it, and being aware of it deepens my now. And that old skirt which I wear only around the house these days (a few years ago, it was torn by the back bike wheel when it got caught in it) is really a relic of that fundamentally different world, which deserves to be present even in its absence, in which my mother is alive, and has just washed the skirt and spread it on the clothes-line on our third-floor balcony like a perfect semicircle of color that I can see from below, going back home from the grocery store. Something in the pattern of that skirt's fabric encapsulates a world which has passed away (a friend wrote to me, a day after my mother died, "You must have woken up to a fundamentally different world today ") but which resolutely informs the present world, the now-me. And I am happy to acknowledge it.
Ultimately, these objects are mnemonics -- not the thing itself, but the daily aids in remembering how the dots are connected. They are a private way of measuring and telling time; an entirely personal touchstone that assumes an ontological objectivity and helps me understand my coordinates which do not represent a state but a process in flux with no real past/present boundaries. These objects are vital but not because they have a cult value of an idol -- they are indispensable because they allow me to push the limits of now, and enlarge any given moment. They make of me a truly symbol-based creature (and confirm that my choice of literature for profession was a good one).
A rather lengthy and apologetic way of saying, "No, I don't really throw things away..."
Up on a small ladder, rather precariously balancing between the inside and the outside of the study room closet, I stuck my head further in, to examine the piles of papers on the only shelf, buried in dust and darkness. Pathological hoarder, I was cornered by the red-alarm lack of space in my work area and had to -- very reasonably -- make a decision to get rid of some old things and make room for the new ones. I reached and dragged closer an inconspicuous-looking plastic bag, full of loose papers -- my old TESL stuff, it turned out, which could be packed into a box and moved down to the basement; underneath the bag, though, my hand felt several thicker, glossy sheets, which turned out to be: a 2001 calendar! I pulled them out completely, stepping down from the ladder triumphantly -- I finally got something that I can chuck away, for good! (This doesn't happen often; I mostly just move things from one place to another, avoiding any definite partings; as a result, 1) my living space becomes more and more cramped, and 2) I never have the therapeutic benefits of "getting rid" of something).
As I was walking towards the recycling bin, I looked through the calendar sheets, trying to remember why I wanted to keep these ones. I probably liked the reproductions of Klimt's colorful, filigreed, fluid feminine figures, I reasoned, admiring them again, and that was partly true. But then I happened to flip the sheets over, to where the actual calendar grid is drawn with days and dates, and I understood right away. I had written little notes and reminders in the squares for some days -- a hairdresser's appointment, a private ESL tutorial, a Graduate Committee meeting where I was a student rep, an appointment with someone called Joyce (? no memory whatsoever is left of that person)... But at the centre of that outdated universe where the 10-year-younger me existed busily was the square which read "Zlata i Branko." I went through all the remaining sheets, and the square of the first Saturday of each month had the same written in it. What prehistory this was. At that time (and this was the case for a couple of years), I spoke with my parents only once a month because calling long-distance was very expensive both for me (a poverty-line foreign student) and for them (in a post-war and recently-NATO-bombed country). So we had a deal. Every first Saturday in a month was our "conversational Saturday" and exactly at noon the phone would ring, and it would be them. We then had about 10 minutes to compress a whole month into.
What an essentially different world that was. A world before there was Skype. A world in which I was still a child of my parents. A world in which I still had a mother.
And that is precisely why I had kept those sheets, and why I never made it to the recycling bin. In fact, I never do, when it comes to things like these. I have loads of old garments -- mine, or my mother's -- most of which are not worn any more and never will be; or dozens of pens, used by either my mother or my father years ago; a small piggy figurine, sneaked into my suitcase the first time I crossed the Atlantic by my brother (under the pretext, which he revealed to me later, that the piggy "wanted to hit the road a little"); a Kinder-egg smiling teddy with an "ich liebe dich" sign on his chest, which I "borrowed" from my cousin's then infant daughter, as well as possibly hundreds of old notebooks, diaries, letters, postcards, memorabilia, and souvenirs which include a whole series of small white paper bags for pills from my mother's pharmacy, a slightly torn fan with Chinese motifs, and a non-functional purse umbrella that used to reside in my mother's purse (which, incidentally, I also have; there are three Bronhi candies in one of the pockets).
And this is only one tiny fraction of everything I have stacked in various storage areas, which most people would call the stuff of "nostalgia." But it's not exactly nostalgia. It is not the pure feeling of nostos because it is not about wanting to return home. It is, if you will, a whole mini philosophy of how to be. To be fully in the now, I need the bits and fragments of what led to it, and no, it isn't just "the past" because it is the living fabric of my life, which I love, which sprouts from my nails and eyelashes, which has roots beyond and before.
The Kinder-egg "ich liebe dich" dude, for example, stands for all the rain of wonderment, given to me by my cousin's daughter for the brief spell when we lived together, and I like to remember it, and feel it. It doesn't make me feel sad; on the contrary, it makes me walk with a bounce; it makes me look for it, and produce it, and sprinkle it on those immediately around. The Atlantic-crossing piggy is the life-giving playfulness that is my brother, whose spark I keep in a safe place. I like to be aware of it, and being aware of it deepens my now. And that old skirt which I wear only around the house these days (a few years ago, it was torn by the back bike wheel when it got caught in it) is really a relic of that fundamentally different world, which deserves to be present even in its absence, in which my mother is alive, and has just washed the skirt and spread it on the clothes-line on our third-floor balcony like a perfect semicircle of color that I can see from below, going back home from the grocery store. Something in the pattern of that skirt's fabric encapsulates a world which has passed away (a friend wrote to me, a day after my mother died, "You must have woken up to a fundamentally different world today ") but which resolutely informs the present world, the now-me. And I am happy to acknowledge it.
Ultimately, these objects are mnemonics -- not the thing itself, but the daily aids in remembering how the dots are connected. They are a private way of measuring and telling time; an entirely personal touchstone that assumes an ontological objectivity and helps me understand my coordinates which do not represent a state but a process in flux with no real past/present boundaries. These objects are vital but not because they have a cult value of an idol -- they are indispensable because they allow me to push the limits of now, and enlarge any given moment. They make of me a truly symbol-based creature (and confirm that my choice of literature for profession was a good one).
A rather lengthy and apologetic way of saying, "No, I don't really throw things away..."
posted by Tijana | 5:54 PM
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