My Attachment to Things, So Embarrassing
When Daddy Joe died—killed by a train in what the responding officer called as clean a t-bone as he’d ever seen—Mother said she stopped caring about things. Only people mattered. I always took this to mean that attachment to things was shallow.
Yet.
I love my new burnt sienna pillow cases in wrinkly linen. I love my 1950s TV trays I’m using as end tables. The tiny cake plate that I got from 505, china and exquisite, has my heart. If you want to know the truth, I’m attached to the West Elm chairs that face the river view where Tom and I sit each morning, drinking our coffee. I LOVE what I did with the rugs on the concrete floors of the new condo. One layered on another so that we have “under” rugs and “top” rugs, all cream and grey and tan. I like the steel restaurant table Tom’s using as a writing desk and the sleek leather sofa and the bitty end tables shaped like tiddlywinks that we got from Target.
I have always carried this attachment to things. It happens quickly and completely. So that I saved the gum ball from Daddy’s grave. And the hickory nut that Robb Pate gave to me (“Don’t say I never gave you anything,” the Elvis impersonator said as he laid it in my palm.) I’ve justified this character flaw by pointing out things that capture me don’t have to be expensive. As if that made a difference.
Did I mention the tall gold tapers I love stuck in the sterling candlesticks Tom gave me for my birthday? Or the cut crystal nut bowls from Bigmama’s (that I mis-typed and called “Butt bowls” so now that’s all I think of when I see them sparkling in the light)?
Tomorrow, the man from the Common Market will lever the bookcase onto a dolly. He will wheel it a block and half down the sidewalk to our condo. When he unloads it, the acquisition of things for the new condo will be complete. Remaining to arrive is Uncle Hebron’s army trunk from WWII which will be the toy chest. All the things, lodged in my condo, attached to my heart.
attachment to things, furnishing a new condo, how death changes you
Julia coggins
Lovely.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Thank you–I feel convicted by it due to Mother’s attitude, but there it is.
Joanne Corey
I think being attached to specific things for their beauty, history, meaning, memory, connections, etc. is not shallow. It’s part of love and self-expression. Note that you did tag this post “Love.” Loving things for these reasons is not embarrassing in my book.
What I interpret as being shallow is acquiring things merely as status symbols or being greedy or buying things for oneself to the detriment of our obligation to care for others.
An occasional splurge or personal indulgence is one thing. Buying something flashy just to show off to the neighbors is something else.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
I did tag it love! And I noticed that. Your interpretation reminds me of where I was at one point in my life. I found myself buying unneeded beautiful things more than I ever had before. In a new city, new flea markets, more free time on my hands…I remember finding an antique tiny silk purse that accordioned. I told myself, Ellen, you can keep doing this if you want. But for each such purchase, you have to donate the same amount to charity. I bought the little purse, and thereafter hugely cut down on my extraneous spending. I could justify the singleton expense, but not when I doubled it. For me, it was a way of asking, how much do you really want this? I was being greedy, and I resolved it by pairing it with refocusing on caring for others. So your standards absolutely work for me. <3 (I always enjoy the "deeper thinking" that comes out of your comments)
Sybil MacBeth
I see this “attachment” as more gratitude than greed. If you have a house full of stuff that you can’t even name or find, that’s different. Instead, I see you honoring the delight that each of these things brings you, like little thank-yous to the universe for their existence and the hands that crafted them.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
“Delight.” I do take delight in them. Mother always said she was a monk in another life–she hated the clutter of things on a table. Yet, she had a gold-rimmed decorative plate that she carefully packed and moved with her in her almost-every-3-years moves. I wish she was still here to ask her what it was about that plate…
Joanne Corey
Have you read Ross Gay’s Book of Delights? They are not all things, of course, but I find many of them surprising. Delight is an individual thing.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
No, I will have to look it up. Thank you!
Mary Lowry
I love this piece and how it makes me feel better about having and loving things. I like the way it rounds out who you are. But I will say that watching my brother die “things” fell completely away as in any way significant. I know that is not quite fair to your argument, but for me, the tug of things, even beloved things, has weakened.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
I think your experience with your brother may very well be what happened to Mother. But she also used to say she was a reincarnated monk, so who knows. 🙂