Do you have memories of objects from your past you want to have again? I do; I have a bunch of them. Spo-fans know from the “Curious things about the house” entries I have heaps of knickknacks and bibelots. Between these and the booty retrieved from my parent’s house last year, you would think that I would have enough. All the same there are some items I would give lots to possess. They have in common they are associated with good times and memories. Here are some examples:
This little ornament was poolside at The Big Ruby’s resort in Key West, where some of my best memories come from.
Also from Florida is this keyring of three plastic seashells; I like this colour combination.
A later object is this Spo-shirt; it is one of my better-made ones. I made for a friend who has declined into dementia. I can not get hold of him anymore. Goodness knows if he still has it or if his family has thrown it out. I would like it back to remember him by.
As you can see these items all have photographs. I can pull up anytime and remember. Jack Gilbert, in his poem “The lost hotels of Paris”:
“It’s the having not the keeping that is the treasure. We look up at the stars and they are not there… We see the memory of when they were, once upon a time. And that too is more than enough.”
Memories of things and not the things themselves are what matters.
All the same there is a childish part of me that wants these things.
Earlier this month I visited Father, who now lives in a room at Brother #3’s abode. I was curious to see what he had, what carried with him after forty years of living in his house. I thought a lot of things he kept was silly. I tactually did not ask why on earth are you holding onto “X” when it isn’t practical and taking up space. I knew better; I know we are funny creatures who want – need? – to hang on to things, and usually the mawkish not the practical ones.
In “King Lear” Lear’s daughter’s question why he has to have his knights and finally anything at all. He responds:
O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs.
I do not need to find or retrieve these or any items from my past. While waiting for something online to happen I will google-search “seashell keyring’ or “frog statue” to see if the cosmic slot machine pays off, but it is mostly done for fun. I wonder if I would actually purchase these items if someday I hit the jackpot. I guess I won’t.
35 comments
January 31, 2021 at 3:26 PM
anne marie in philly
I like the key chain and the spo shirt.
January 31, 2021 at 3:54 PM
Urspo
I do too.
January 31, 2021 at 4:07 PM
Debra She Who Seeks
The only thing I wish I had held onto from my childhood was the wooden ride-em horse my father made for me when I was five. I’d give almost anything to have it now. Maybe I’ll do a post on it some day. Ordinarily, I’m not overly sentimental about objects and just the memory alone of them or photos of them are enough for me. But I do wish I still had that horse.
January 31, 2021 at 5:51 PM
Urspo
This sounds like the emotions I was try to capture here.
January 31, 2021 at 4:09 PM
BadNoteB
A beautiful post to ponder on a melancholy Sunday. Thank you, Spo! And congrats on the 2021 performance evaluation from that surly and cantankerous BoD!
January 31, 2021 at 5:51 PM
Urspo
Sundays are often melancholy to evoke such memories of things past.
January 31, 2021 at 4:14 PM
Sam
I have little from my childhood including pictures. I hold most in my brain and that has to do.
January 31, 2021 at 5:52 PM
Urspo
In the end these are the best way to keep the past alive.
January 31, 2021 at 5:13 PM
David Godfrey
My grandmother had a file with the invoices for about 20 new cars (Ford and Mercury) between 1942 and 1977, tossed when her house was cleared out. My grandmothers diaries, likely still in a house in Florida.
January 31, 2021 at 5:52 PM
Urspo
how splendid it would be to read those now.
January 31, 2021 at 5:18 PM
Old Lurker
There are some childhood toys and magazines I think about now and then. Having said that, I did manage to rescue some childhood keepsakes and I rarely attend to them now. Nostalgia is a fickle mistress.
January 31, 2021 at 5:53 PM
Urspo
Indeed. Often when the items are recovered they are not as ‘charged’ as they once were.
January 31, 2021 at 6:00 PM
Bob Slatten
Oh the memories I have of Big Ruby’s. That was where we usually stayed when we visited Key West.
January 31, 2021 at 6:37 PM
Urspo
They are some of my favorite memories; I often return there in my mind to remember.
January 31, 2021 at 6:25 PM
Ron
Goodness yes, I have way too many things from my past that evoke pleasant memories. It saddens me to think of what will happen to them when I bite the dust but then that is way of life isn’t it? Who would want that oil portrait of me done in 1979 in Provincetown Mass during the height of my gay youthful freedoms.
January 31, 2021 at 6:38 PM
Urspo
I don’t suppose you’ve bequeathed it to somebody?
I have some things in the house with little instruction notes to them, where they should go when I die.
January 31, 2021 at 7:02 PM
Linda Practical Parsimony
I lost the little trunk Daddy made me when I was eight. That was where all my childhood toys and memories were held. Things both my parents made for me were kept there for safekeeping. It went to the dump with my house and I grieve for it every single day.
January 31, 2021 at 7:46 PM
Urspo
Yes that is a sad loss
January 31, 2021 at 7:29 PM
Robzilla, Native of Slam Diego
I have a keychain that has the street signs from Bourbon St and it’s inside a circle that’s stamped New Orleans French Quarter. The signpost spins in the middle. I also have an old keychain with a $5 chip from the Monte Carlo LV casino inside of it. There’s also a bunch of old trading cards from the 70s and 80s I never sold that are sitting in a box.
I might have to take some pictures soon.
January 31, 2021 at 7:47 PM
Urspo
I would love to see your treasure box of memories.
January 31, 2021 at 7:41 PM
Bohemian
You look the same! Nostalgia is Sweet isn’t it? At our Antique Mall we have people who wander around just enjoying the Visuals of some things they recall from long ago, perhaps even as far back as their Childhoods. There are few things I can recall that I do not still have and would want back. You were Wise not to say anything to your Dad about what he Cherished most and kept, it is always those things that might never hold any Value to anyone else that we seem to Cherish most and hang onto ’til the End.
January 31, 2021 at 7:47 PM
Urspo
Truth be told I thought it dear what he kept
January 31, 2021 at 7:45 PM
larrymuffin
You and the frog, that picture could have been taken yesterday.
The only thing I wish I still had are 2 paintings from my parents home which were sold at auction and a Coranic embroidery I got in Cairo years ago. I miss those things.
January 31, 2021 at 7:48 PM
Urspo
I guess this photo was taken some time in the late 90s. Over twenty years ago or me.
January 31, 2021 at 7:52 PM
larrymuffin
So cute with that rakish smile
January 31, 2021 at 11:22 PM
Parnassus
It seems that I have enough objects without wishing for more, but among the lost items from the past I would like back are a folder of drawings a friend and I made in middle school, my research folders and photos of a house in New Haven that I am about to post on, and among my lost books, an encyclopedia-sized set of Horace Walpole’s correspondence, all lost in a fire.
–Jim
February 1, 2021 at 5:48 AM
Urspo
lost in a fire? A sad tale, my friend.
January 31, 2021 at 11:41 PM
Pipistrello
The pattern-matching on your shirt is masterful! What a lovely, thoughtful post. I feel pretty lucky to have memories of precious things lost to circumstance to turn over in my mind when I want, for one day the brain may not oblige any more. I’ve plenty more in my clutches, ephemera and books and whatnot, that will mean nought to others and will be hard to justify keeping when the time comes. Meanwhile, I wore a ring my mum gave me when I was a teen’ for the first time in decades only today. Still fit and was so ‘now’ I thought it a perfect justification for my low-level hoarding!
February 1, 2021 at 5:49 AM
Urspo
My cousin recently posted a photo wearing a ring Mother wore. It was amazing to see it again and remember it.
February 1, 2021 at 1:15 AM
Fit Studs
Interestin’ sea moments, buddy! 😉
February 1, 2021 at 5:49 AM
Urspo
LOL you are probably too young for this sort of stuff.
February 1, 2021 at 2:38 AM
Moving with Mitchell
I’m always pleased to find a photo that brings back a memory of something I know longer have. There are just a very few things I wish I still had in hand.
February 1, 2021 at 5:52 AM
Urspo
Do you put your photos in albums, frames, or onto the computer?
February 1, 2021 at 3:57 AM
Hugh W. Roberts
I’d love to own some Christmas lights my parents purchased when I was very young. I see them occasionally on eBay, where they now sell for what I only describe at mad money. However, seeing them on eBay always brings back lovely memories of those Christmases.
Your memories of around the poolside in Keywest sound very interesting.
February 1, 2021 at 5:53 AM
Urspo
“Mad money”- I learned some thing new! Thank you.