The ring-tailed lemur with bulging eyes had this caption below his picture on my refrigerator: "Did someone say, 'yard sale?'" I smile every time I look at it. He is kin to me in that matter.
The new word to describe down-sizing one's possessions is "editing." I don't understand why someone would want to do that. In fact, I don't understand how someone could do that. But, I am not a hoarder. I am a re-purposer. My entire adult life I have lived on a relatively snug budget so I really do think before I throw something out.
Case in point: It is the dead of winter and every time I drive into my garage I have to look at the pots of dirt I am holding for springtime. Why? This is why: because I'm too cheap to throw the dirt out, hose out the pots, neatly stack them in one corner of the garage and buy new potting soil in April... which, by the way, is what I will end up doing anyways because the dirt gets stale when it winters-over. So for now I have a long planter of dirt stashed under the gas grill and two tucked under the extra table in the front of the garage. I have about four or five pots with partially dead thingamajigs in them that may or may not perk back up in a few months. I have three empty hanging pots hooked to the side of the garage shelf taking up space too. Heaven forbid I recycle them and start anew in the spring. All this by way of saying, I am not an amateur, I am The Quintessential Saver & Re-purposer.
I had to explain to my almost elderly mother the other day that I am not a hoarder. My mother and my younger sister live like Benedictine monks in exile: sparse possessions. I cannot relate to that. I am emotionally touched by cute figurines at flea markets and bins of tools at antique stores are very interesting to some corner of my brain. I don't dismiss things; I think to myself: is there anything I could use this whooziewhatzit for, because it is only two dollars?
I also "ransom" religious artifacts from antique barns. I went through a summer where I was re-painting indoor & outdoor Saints & Blessed Mother statues for people. I picked up a very, shall we say, "homely" 8-inch plaster duo of St. Anne and young Blessed Mary in the back room of an old antique house in Booneville. I repainted them and gave them to a friend. I didn't want to keep them for myself because I have ambivalent feelings about St. Anne ... in college another nice Catholic girl told me that the prayer was, "Good St. Anne, please find me a man." Either the prayer was too short, or she thought I would take just any specimen of XY that she sent along ... no match on either count.
That same summer, one of my buddies gave me, rather gingerly, a small desktop grotto statue of the Blessed Mother and asked me if I was able to refinish it. He pointed out that it was a gift from a family member, and was I certain that I could do it? I smiled in my heart. Did he think I would paint her with a purple robe and green hair? I washed that statue carefully and sat it on my kitchen table. Then I let it "speak" to me. I started with the painting each and every grotto stone a lighter shade of grey than previously. As I was doing it, mentally taking one step at a time, I found that the prior painter had actually used a dark dungeon-grey color and painted not only the rocks but right over tiny rosettes and vines as well. I was able to bring those rosettes to the foreground with their appropriate happy shades of pinkish-white.
When I got to the base of the statue, I painted her feet and added just a tasteful, slight peach hue to her toes. Then I painted the snake she was standing on. Again, the prior artist had just washed grey right over that. She had also been standing on a nondescript globe. It wasn't just an artistic detail - it was an important theological point that had previously been smeared-over with the all-purpose dungeon-grey. When I painted her hands and face, I asked the important question: How should a Middle Eastern Jewish woman look? I finished the whole ensemble and let it sit on my table for days so I could ponder it and finalize any details. I took out my small bottle of magic finish that adds a slight sparkly sheen to anything it touches, and added that to her gown. After all, if the Blessed Mother appeared to me in my living room, that is what I expect she would be doing: shimmering with holiness. And yes, my friend seemed quite pleased with the result.
So, I am not just collecting religious artifacts or odds & ends at yard sales. I am expanding my own hobby talents (ie. painting). Painting is actually a form of spiritual contemplation - I find it very grounding. But I digress. The original point was that this concept of "editing" one's possessions is not for me. I gave away two blankets, a pair of pants, and a lavender colored handbag this past weekend to the local Thrift Store. I can do that because I feel as if I am sharing my collection with someone out there who needs it more. But I will admit this: if I come to an untimely demise, someone who comes to clean out my house is going to name my blanket collection: The Chris A. Memorial Blanket Collection.
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