Do mementos have a “best by” date?
While recently deep cleaning to amass a load for Goodwill, I discovered a box containing my mother’s brunette sausage curls. They represent her first haircut when she turned 15 in 1933. The box also contains one blond ringlet shorn from my maternal grandfather who was born in 1890. I know all this because Mother clearly labeled the box and the note within it in her neat, school-teacher penmanship.
What do I do with this memento? The hair seems clean and in good condition, but do I need it? What meaning does it offer to me?
Back in Victorian times when daguerreotypes and images of people were rare, hair provided a tangible link to the deceased. Often human hair was fashioned into artwork to commemorate the departed and to console those bereaved. Today we can evoke our deceased loved ones with photos, audio recordings, videos. Hair is passe.
Mother, as archivist, also saved a lock of my baby hair and baby teeth, along with my old report cards, artwork, and booties. Even after she died ten years ago, I continue to
find oddments with notes included. These explain the provenance of, say, the cameos that soldier Dad purchased in Florence, Italy, and brought back as a gift for her in 1944.
The past was her passion.
Unlike my dear mother, I tend to let go of the past and its artifacts, the better to embrace the now and whatever beckons over the horizon. To that end, I’m discarding souvenirs that have outlived their importance to me. For example,
Wild oregano and rosemary picked on the Greek island of Anafi by an old flame. Both the herbs and the fellow have lost their savor.
My son’s essays and math computations from his undergrad college years. He’s a professor now.
The boarding pass for my first flight to Paris 14 years ago.
Sales receipts for pottery purchased in Istanbul.
A toothbrush from Korean Air for an overnight trip to Singapore.
Perhaps I more easily let go of the past because I trust the future. Or because I move so often. Since leaving the home where I raised my children in Wyoming, I’ve moved seven times, not counting the nine addresses where I house sat.
My friend Carol knows how to detach from stuff. As one who once moved from a home with 10 fireplaces and a 150 ft. x 50 ft. barn to a cute 2-bedroom Cape, she’s the Queen of the Clean. How did she do it? “I’d take an object in my hand and say, ‘You’ve served me well. Goodbye!’ then heave it.”
Works for me.
In his tiny but wise book, Souvenir, Rolf Potts observes, “I was struck by how much of what we collect in life ultimately becomes depleted of meaning…an object that once gave concrete meaning to experience only to once again (and inevitably) be rendered abstract by time.”
Nowadays if a memento generates little meaning, for either my family or for me, I toss it with no regrets. More adventure and artifacts await.
As for the curls, my cousin, the genealogy buff, says he wants them. ###
Invitation to Write
What souvenirs do you hold onto despite their diminished meaning? Why?
What mementos do you expect to save forever? Explain.
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