The souls of my things

Looking around my study, I see that a large plurality if not outright majority of the larger objects (I don't want to quibble over definitions, because nobody is auditing my blog for accuracy) have origin stories: Mary's old futon, George's old guitar, my great-great uncle's (or whoever he was)* old cane, the library table Mary and I bought in Somerville, the armchair I bought in early '95 for my room at Columbia, which occasioned Mary's first trip to High Point (you would think I might have learned something from that trip), the plastic Ritalin man pencil-holder I bought at a yard sale at the Lowenthals in '74 or so, and so on. They have been with me or Mary for decades, some have been in the family for centuries.

So when I say I don't like things, it's not entirely true. I just don't like things without histories, without souls, as it were. That is, things that are not extensions of my soul.

But I would not mind getting rid of Mary's old futon and getting a couch on which I could nap, read, and watch TV in the evenings. I just need to get that done.



*Given to Reverend JC Troy by the stewards of the Riverside Church in 1892, apparently