So, I'm not a good housekeeper. True, I'm also not what you would call a "housewife." I work outside of the home full time, and aside from my days off, I keep hours that aren't that conducive to cleaning and maintaining a household. I want to believe that if I didn't work full time I might do a better job, but if I'm honest with myself, I know that the improvement could be marginal. Clearly, I still have my job, so, for now, we don't have to test the theory.
Occasionally, I do get the urge to go through all the "stuff" that accumulates. I am a classic pack rat. I can't think of too many things I don't save. When I was in therapy and talked about this issue, I justified it by saying that I didn't know if I might need or want it sometime and I hated to let it go. I am not a hoarder, but I think I understand a thing or two about people who are.
I was going through the piles in the coffee table (I probably do this every three to four months) and rummaging through all of the magazines. Magazines and catalogs took up perhaps 90% of the space under the table. I have always loved magazines and catalogs, but I think my education in graphic arts took that love to a completely insane level. I love paper, fonts, photography and design. In light of that, what's not to love about magazines and catalogs? Until this morning, I was beginning to feel better about my piles. In the last year or two, I have whittled down the number of magazines I must receive via subscription to three. At one time, I know I used to subscribe to about six. I know--it's only a reduction of half, but that's at least thirty-six fewer magazines each year. We can't talk about the number I pick up at the newsstand--I just can't go there with you.
In the process of sorting through all of the stuff, I ran across the airmail envelope that my copy of A Silent Film's "The Projectionist" came in. I almost put it in the recycling pile, but I flipped it over and handwritten on the envelope is the address it was shipped from--Robert Stevenson's address--he's the lead singer. I'm sure it's the address of a post box, but that's not the point. As a tiny band, just starting out, it occurred to me that there is a very real and likely possibility that the handwritten address is in his own hand. How could I part with that?
Among the items are the four-hundred or so page manuscript of my first unpublished book and the stack of books about how to get a literary agent and get published alongside. My manuscript, in a three-ringed binder, sits on top of a box Jeph lovingly labeled "Stuff Sammi Wrote." That box contains copies of our college newspaper, "The Outlook." I brought it up from the basement last fall when I wanted to share a column I had written about earthworms crossing the sidewalks in torrential rains.
Mixed in among various pieces of paper--magazine pages I saved when I was sorting things the last time (and I had determined not to save the whole magazine), old contact lists of coworkers and classmates, and coupons that expired months ago--I found a poem typed on onion skin paper. My mom always loved onion skin paper to write on, and at one point in time, I found the substrate equally romantic. I couldn't tell you what year I wrote the following poem:
I had a dream...
While deep in my childish slumber,
I happened on a world of wonder.
A land of giving, sharing and
above all, caring.
In this beautiful world there was a
total commitment of peace and good.
And those who lived there lived as people should.
No hunger, no pain, just a land of plenty.
There were no feelings of fear and despair,
because we knew how to care.
In this place all who dwelled were given a voice
and even the tiniest was heard.
Children were able to express themselves
and their words were heard.
There were no rich, no poor, just people in this land,
who willingly could stand hand in hand.
Talk of wars and death could not be heard,
never a word.
As I awoke, in me a small voice spoke,
"Let this dream begin with me
and let's make our world what it should be."
Truly, a gem, right? I'm guessing it was circa 1988, prior to my typing class in high school, because it was riddled with typos and other errors that I have chosen to correct here.
I think about all of the precious things I own, and I know that I wouldn't be able to save all of them if something happened and I had to get out fast. When I think about that, it makes me sad. Of course, the only things that I must take with me are myself and my family--and I know that.
It reminds me of a scene out of the movie "Leap Year." Amy Adams' character turns the sprinklers on in the fabulous apartment she shares with her fiance, and reality sinks in as he runs to save "anything of value," but he never reaches for her.
Jeph and I are planning a massive road trip to Salem, Massachusetts this fall. I am so excited. I visited Salem last year to research an unfinished book that I wish I would write. On the way there, I took a side trip to Baltimore, Maryland and visited Edgar Allan Poe's home and several other related sites. The number of items that exist belonging to him is very small. The house is meager and functions on about $80,000 a year. Those operational funds are in jeopardy due to Baltimore's financial crisis.
As we make our way to Salem this time around, we plan to stop in Cleveland, Ohio and visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Coming back, I have an opportunity to visit one of two Edgar Allan Poe sites--but realistically, only one. The Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site is a house in Philadelphia that Poe lived in for a short time. When you take the virtual tour, it's not hard to see that the house has very few "things" in it. On the other hand, it is reported that Poe may have begun writing "The Raven" at this house, and he certainly did write several other works there. The Edgar Allan Poe Museum of Richmond is in a building Poe never visited, but it has numerous artifacts that belonged to Poe's family and a handful of items that belonged to him personally, including his walking stick and a vest that he wore. The site in Richmond also houses a collection of first editions and manuscripts that I long to drool over.
How do I choose between these two places? I keep thinking about the tiny home, in the horrible neighborhood in Baltimore. I keep thinking about how meaningful it was to be in the space of Poe. The only item in the house that I remember belonging specifically to him was a chair in the first room of the house--I'm sure it's not the only piece, but it's the one that really sticks with me. I was fortunate enough that the lady manning the facility that day broke with policy and took a photo of me standing beside it, just in front of a bust of Poe that sits on the mantle piece in the room. In spite of the fact that there were few items that related directly to him in the house, my heart knew he had been there as much as my mind did.
I am grateful to the people who sold or donated items belonging to Poe, and or his family, to the museum in Richmond. I want to see those things someday. I really do. I know that he grew up in Richmond and spent a lot of time in the city, but when I think of the way his foster father John Allan treated him throughout his adolescence and adulthood, I think just like the building, the city was never truly a "home" to Poe. Several of the items of greatest interest were salvaged by folks who knew they would be worth something someday. That makes me sad to think about. It puts an exclamation point on the idea that so many people thought he was worthless while he was alive.
So, as I rummage through all of my stuff and I ask myself what to save, I think of Edgar Allan Poe. I think about the fact that so few physical items that belonged to him are still in existence. He was a man who owned very few "things." And yet, he exists as sure as those handful of items exist. You can't see him or touch him, but in places like the house in Baltimore, he is there.
It makes me wonder how we as a society decide what is worthy of saving, and what we can afford to lose. The Edgar Allan Poe House in Baltimore is a tiny building, in a horrible neighborhood, with a handful of people keeping it alive for people like me to visit it like Mecca. The hour or so that I spent there means so much to me that it breaks my heart to think that others who love Poe may never get to have that experience for lack of $80,000 a year.
That house is proof to me that we don't have to have anything in our possession to leave something of ourselves behind. We are in the pores of the bricks, the grain of the wood, the fiber of the curtains, and the space we inhabit.
http://youtu.be/o3lBF2h-Pl0
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