When I look at my things, I can trace the arch of my desires. I can remember why I asked my mother for a typewriter, because I wanted to write a novel. I still have small dusty jars of model paint from when I was a child building model ships. I have the same paint brushes I've had since college. I have twelve notebooks with songs, poems, and journal entries written from long forgotten days. I have a print in a heavy wooden frame of a picture of Colonel Pershing standing next to Pancho Villa that I bought in Baja, Mexico. I've bought a guitar, a jump rope, leather bound journals, paints and canvasses, and a mountain bike. All these things I've bought while trying to reconcile myself with this modern world. There are three types of people in the world, those who are obsessed with the past, those who live solely in the present, and those who spend their lives preparing for the future. For me, the past has weighed heavily. Most of the things I had to let go of were little totems from places I've been and things I've seen. These things were to be a part of some great collage so I could surround myself with memories, enshroud myself in the blanket of the past. When I buy a guitar, I am trying to rejoin the present... learn something new. When I buy a calligraphy pen set it's so I can become something new, be present. When I buy new clothes, I'm trying to drag myself out of the old ways, to keep pace with these manic times. It's amusing to think of the ways in which we love our little things. We spend our life buying things that are useful, things that are for decoration, and things that serve no purpose whatsoever, then we carry them with us for our whole lives. To me, it's not that hard to imagine being a hoarder. We all have the same feelings within us to a certain degree. Try throwing something you've had for a time in the trash can. Something you have sitting in a display case. You'll find it a daunting task and you might just pick it out and clean it up and put it back on the shelf. It's become instinct to love the miscellaneous tack we gather around ourselves. Letting go of it is like losing an arm. Carlos Castaneda wrote that small totems were infused with the magic of their previous owners. In a very real sense the things we hold onto become our captors, become like prison bars, sitting in front of us, needing constant maintenance and care, travelling with us through our lives. When I moved in with Anna, I finally looked at all the loose things I've carried with me since olden times and realized that I would never use them. I thought I would finally end up in a place where I could raise them from the dustbin, resurrect them in sacred ceremony, and place them on the altar of memory. But now I realize this will never happen. Thanks to this new life I've entered, I know that in order to adorn myself in the past, I would have to sacrifice the present. Each second wasted on such a project, although justifiable, would only be selfish and overtly personal. I might be able to bask in the glow of a wall full of old posters, fliers, pictures, and bumper stickers, but I would be alone. The modern world is so much more interesting, and the things I've collected, although a bridge to the past, to who I am, are outdated and irrelevant.
Last week Anna set up an appointment at Macy's in order to begin the process of registering for our wedding. We went to the mall on a frigid January night and rode the escalator up to the second floor and entered a seductive world of young couples, well dressed saleswomen, a DJ, and delicious pastries. Without any idea of how to go about collecting new things, we began walking through a vast landscape of china plates, crystal glasses, silverware, kitchen appliances, home wares, bedding, electronic devices, and vacuum cleaners... after an hour I was reeling. It was overwhelming and when it was over we had only registered for four items. Anna was already planning to go to several other places so she didn't want to commit to a large number of things at one store unless she found something better elsewhere so we walked away unfulfilled. For Anna, registering for gifts is the last great opportunity to collect the material goods to build our life together. Like a contractor ordering lumber, cinder blocks, cement, and tools, she goes about the business of constructing a new world for us with aplomb and confidence. She knows what she wants and she knows how to shop. I'm the perfect sucker for the retail world. I see shiny things and I shell out the money like a child at a carnival trying to throw a dart at a balloon. I know too these things she is buying will replace all the old things I have. But I'm fine with that. I think it's time to let go of my material world, the world of concrete functionality. I will probably hold on to things such as my stereo, books, CD's and DVD's, and the artistic things that I want to explore, but the rest is just gathering dust and I've grown tired of boxing myself in, tired of the avalanche of worldly possessions. The past will always be there, like a museum I can visit anytime. Blessed memory returns so fluidly when it's shared with old friends, is so much more true and real when sitting around with people. I can't really trust myself with those times when I look at an old picture, and it's fairly unfulfilling as well. The future will be taken care of by my future wife, so knowledgeable, so adept at thinking of such things. That leaves the present wide open. Until we meet again...
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