Saving For The Future

[Writers Plot]

Posted by Sheila Connolly

My across-the-street neighbors are delightful people. They've been married fifty years (we were invited to the big party thrown by their family in honor of the event, even though we had known them only three years). Both retired, they are diligent gardeners, and the missus delights in holding yard sales several times a year. (It is worth noting that mister left the state altogether to avoid this most recent sale–it's the women in the family who do all the heavy lifting.) Since I live directly across from them, I've observed quite a number of these sales in the time we've lived here, and yes, I've even bought things now and then. But this weekend was the first time I had managed to get my stuff together to actually participate.

On my mother's side, I am descended from a line of women who were definitely ambivalent (may I say schizophrenic?) about saving things. My sister and I share a collection of items passed down from our great-grandmother, who was a well-to-do woman. Unfortunately they were filtered through her daughter-in-law, who was most definitely not a saver. I'm still trying to figure out her philosophy: she was raised as a foster child, although not in poverty, and she married well. One might suppose that she would acquire a great number of material possessions and revel in them, to compensate for any childhood deprivation. Not so. Yes, she did collect things–mostly silver and china, some jewelry, a few paintings–but she emphasized quality over quantity. She spent most of her life in the time I knew her living in a studio apartment in New York, overlooking Park Avenue (see? small but carefully chosen).

She purged much of what she inherited from her mother-in-law. Some of this was for practical–i.e., economic–reasons, but mostly it was because she really didn't want the baggage. As a result, my sister and I ended up with: one chair; two lamps; a painting with a mysterious story; a porcelain breakfast set; a lot of table linens that all require ironing; a black lace fan; a silver desk set, and not a lot else. Oh, and the deeds to an orange plantation in Cuba, but that's another story. In any event, there just isn't very much in the way of possessions.

Nor are there many photographs or letters. To my eternal (genealogist's) regret, the sum and total of the documents passed down through my mother's family might fill two shoeboxes. The irony of this was driven home last week when I visited some people who live in a colonial house in Western Massachusetts, where my orchard series is set. They bought the house from the last member of a family who had lived there since the place was built in the 18th century, and when he sold the property, he cleared out the cellars and attics and barns and had a huge yard sale. Apparently no one in the family had thrown anything out for centuries–literally. Who knows what was there? One intrepid woman at the sale managed to snag a trunk full of Civil War correspondence, and there are a few diaries that were overlooked, but that's it–centuries of family history, scattered to the winds. The heir didn't care–he just wanted to get rid of it all. (And he's still around–I'm tempted to put out a contract on him for what he did.)

So it should be no surprise to you that I have trouble getting rid of anything. Maybe I inherited some of my Yankee forebears' thrifty genes–heck, I might be able to use that piece of fabric/broken tool/mismatched cup for something, sometime. You never know, right? And of course the minute I throw it out, I'll find something it would be just perfect for. Seriously, it gives me almost physical pain to part with anything. In sorting through my endless boxes in the cellar and attic to get ready for the yard sale, I found not one but two boxes full of hangers, and proceeded to give my daughter a lecture about the history of hangers in my family. Yes, I have three generations of hangers, and I can provide backstory for all of them. No, I haven't gotten rid of any of them. I might be attacked by a herd of clothes one of these days, or maybe my closets will multiply while I'm not looking.

I know, I know–if I never get rid of anything, how can I acquire anything more? Things that mean something to me, without history? But the old things...they bring me closer to the people in my own past who chose them, handled them, cared for them, preserved them. To throw them away now feels like throwing away my history, and I just can't bring myself to do it.

Thank goodness for my attic.