My 50th Post! "Stuff" and stories

This is my 50^th blog post.  It’s interesting to look back at what I’ve had to say over the past nine years, and to see which posts were read the most, and which ones weren’t.  When I started, I had good intentions – a post a month, at least.  Lately, it’s been more like one or two a year.  Along the way, I’ve lost some of my biggest “fans” – my aunt and my mom, for example, although perhaps “encouragers” would be a better word to describe them.

My most-read post, from November 2014, is about football.  That’s surprising to me in some ways, because I know a lot of people who are not sports fans, and who actually consider sports barbaric and uncultured (I know, right??).  The others in the top 5 are posts I wrote about my father-in-law, my father, two Grey Cup games I attended (more football), and some not so great experiences I had as a community volunteer.

My least read posts are about PEI, Life Lessons (reflecting on my experiences with cancer), Going Home to places where you once belonged, Christmas Cheer, and reflections on the recent Coronation of King Charles III.

In between, I’ve written about my experiences with the local refugee coalition, motherhood, research interests, feminism, significant places, tragic events, and a lot of other random topics that captured my attention. I’ve had one guest blogger (my daughter).  For the most part, I haven’t written about anything terribly controversial, although the post about my existential church crisis garnered some personal comments.  My posts are not intellectually deep, but more reflections on things that are going on in my life or my world. 

Anyway, you’re reading this, so you already know all this.

I was trying to come up with a really great topic for this significant post.  But the topic that keeps floating in and out of my mind relates to stories.  My story, your story, family stories.  And “stuff.”

If you’ve been in my house, you know that I have a lot of “stuff.”  Tchotchkes (I had to look up how to spell that!), trinkets, ornaments, bric-à-brac, knick-knacks -- miscellaneous stuff that sits on shelves or hangs on walls and collects dust, and doesn’t serve any useful purpose.  I’ve also recently inherited additional “stuff” from my aunt and my parents.  I’ve slowly been going through my mom and dad’s things since my mom had her stroke in 2019, trying to unemotionally assess what is worth keeping, what is worth trying to sell, and what is not worth anything.

My problem is that I’m hugely sentimental, and this task has been difficult and emotional.  How does one define “worth?”  How should “worth” be determined?  Strictly through monetary value?  Popularity in the current societal climate? (News flash: the “good” silverware, china dishes, the fancy kind edged with gold or platinum, and all those beautiful china teacups that our moms collected have absolutely no value today.  We are a lazy society.  People don’t want dishes they can’t put in the dishwasher).  I know there are a lot of minimalist people out there who attach no value to any material items – you can walk into their homes and not see one item anywhere that you couldn’t get at Home Sense or Wayfair.  I am not those people.

What I’ve realized, of course, is that to me and to people like me, all of this “stuff” has value, not only because it belonged to people that I love, but because
it represents our stories.  This “stuff” is a tangible, physical reminder of people, places, events in our lives.  I look up from my desk and see a stained glass goldfinch hanging in my window which was made from the windows of the church where I was married, and gifted to us by a man who attended that church.  I can see a silver tray with a North-West Indigenous design that was given to us by the family of a student who is now an RCMP officer.  I see a print made by another former student who became a good friend, and who died suddenly several summers ago, and another print given to us by a noted printmaker when our house was falling apart just after we moved here.  I see items that remind me of the time we spent in Greece and the Holy Land many years ago, and Japan in 2000.  Old tobacco tins remind me of my Mennonite grandfather and my father, who used them for nails and screws, which they used to build beautiful furniture.  There are things that my children made for me or gave me.  A sampler stitched by my great-grandmother in 1875 connects me to my mother’s roots.  The desk I’m writing at was built by my father for my mother, and reminds me of their deep, deep love for each other, for God, and for their family.  My mom’s teacups and china remind me of Sunday dinners around an overflowing dining room table and some of the people who shared those moments with us.  And there’s stuff that simply brings me joy because of its beauty.  How can these things be assessed for their true “worth"?

Their true worth, of course, is not in their monetary value, but in the memories they hold and the stories they tell.  Every piece of tchotchke, every item on the shelf or the wall is a piece of my story, a reminder of places travelled, people whose lives have touched mine, accomplishments, events, and experiences that have shaped and transformed me.  Individually, they are merely “things.”  Collectively, they tell the story of my life.  They remind me of who I am, where I’ve come from, what I have done and what I want to do.  They are symbols and reminders of my identity, my values, and the meaning and purpose of my life. 

The minimalist phenomonen that was sparked by Marie Kondo attracted a lot of followers; I prefer to embrace the “cluttercore” style, or as the BBC calls it, “creative chaos,” “beautiful eclecticism,” and “gorgeous abundance.”  That sounds much more attractive to me.  It celebrates a sense of place, of security, of warmth and joy, being surrounded by comforting things.  The tangible reminders of my story, my family’s story, are meaningful to me.  They are a part of me. My “stuff” comforts me because it reminds me of who I am and who I want to be. 

 Photo captions: 

Top photo: Items from time spent in Japan and Greece, and my great-grandmother's sampler. 

Second photo: a teacup brought by my great-grandmother from Ukraine to Canada in the 1870s, which travelled with her when they immigrated to Mexico in the 1920s, and found its way back to Canada, and was given to me by my aunt. 

Third photo: my mother's "good" glassware, which matched her china, used for Sunday dinners, and all special celebrations.

Fourth photo: pocket watches found in the midden on the farm in southwestern Manitoba where my dad built our first house; display case built by my father.

Fifth photo: tobacco cans used by my father and grandfather in their workshops; a cinnamon box; beaded flowers which I made for my mother when I was about 12.