People will not believe me when I say my house is small until they are standing at the front door looking out the back. Right after I bought it, the stuff followed. All the things buried in the basement of my parent’s house from my childhood and whatever fit in the truck came to my house. Soon the main room was a triage of junk. I piled and sorted through stuff for me, stuff for the Goodwill, stuff for sale, things flowed out the front door and down the driveway. Soon packages arrived from Michigan. Large boxes covered in stamps from my U.S. post-service aunt in Flint. Crafts made by my namesake eighty years earlier, uncle Paul’s drinking paraphernalia, decorative dishes, ancient books and a three hundred year old clock – which I believe is haunted. More stuff followed when my grandma moved to an apartment the size of my bathroom. The burden of stuff became the burden of family; everything carried a story too precious to throw away.
A collection begins once you acquire three things. One porcelain frog is a knick-knack, two frogs is a pair, and three tells your friends that you collect them and that they should get you frogs for your birthday. I had eight finials, countless chairs, three dining room tables, golf clubs, and golf shoes, dad’s shoes for mowing the lawn, and third generation souvenirs from Japan, Korea, and Saigon, as well as my own souvenirs from Europe.
Before my parents sold their house and moved to Florida; they tried to unload everything on me. First, they ran to Phyl’s, bought twin beds, and made themselves a little bedroom in my new house – while I was at work. They did not go to the dump, or the Goodwill, because the stuff was too good. Now I have a collection of beds, and more stuff. Some of the stuff is words. Words are some of the stuff. It will take years to empty my house.
Recently my mother came for a visit. There were rules she had to follow. She had to sort through the stuff and take her things, she must not complain if something was missing, and she absolutely did not have permission to rearrange anything anywhere else in the house. But she is certain that she knows better than I do; which stories should come out and which stories should remain hidden. But, she does not stop there; she also knows exactly where all the stories should hang, and how I should hang them. She will not stop at telling me what color of wall to hang them on, and in some cases, which season to hang them. When I called my cousin and asked him if he wanted the Xmas ornaments, he was interested in looking at them. My mom’s response was, “if he wants one he has to take them all.”
That was the string of words responsible for all the stuff. I calmly pointed the words out to my mother, but she stared blankly through me. The phrase was such a part of her that she could not hear what she said. She tried to say she was joking. Instead of arguing with me, she walked through my house thoughtfully and asked, “Do you still have some of that holy water from Europe?” I walked all over Western Europe with my friend Garth eighteen years ago. The things I collected there; sand from the Normandy beaches, Lourdes water in plastic Virgin Maries, and a glow in the dark crucifix. I earned these pieces of stuff like I earned the cramps in my legs and the blisters on my feet. I suffered my friends company so that my mother could give my holy water to her friends instead of the brass candlesticks, the dented silver tea set, or my brother’s unfinished baby book with his own violent scribbles that are still in the back room closet.
Slowly, I will continue to unload the room and purge my house of the stuff. I will build the character of my house, starting with the Lourdes water and the portrait of Jesus on the cross with the winking eyes that fits in the medicine cabinet. The coconut and the button collection, the haunted heirlooms and many of the stories will remain, but one of the beds will go to a baby cousin or to the Goodwill. Boxes of things will spread out among the cousins, satellites of stuff that they can suffer from or throw away. Stories will be silenced so as new stories can be made and burdens lightened.
