the archivist
As a child, she collected Gouda cheese wax, molding it into a ball that reached softball proportions. She collected Strawberry Shortcake dolls and My Little Ponies (checking them off on back-of-the-box lists and sending off for free extras with berry points or Pony points). She collected bottlecaps and business cards from every restaurant her family went to, every hotel they stayed at. She went home from the beach with buckets full of shells and rocks. Once she made a person-shaped figure out of Prince Edward Island vacation mud and brought it home, dried and heavy, and set it on her bookshelf.
She saved all of her high school binders, full of worksheets and quizzes and papers and notes. She saved her journals in a fireproof box. She saved her high school swim cap, even though it disintegrated into powder over the years. She saved all of her ragged racing suits. When her other favorite clothes started to wear out, she stopped wearing them, in order to preserve them for special occasions.
She saved the lighter a friend gave her in college, even though she didn't smoke. She saved the McDonald's toys she got when they went out for late-night snacks. She saved programs for plays. She saved movie tickets and put them into a binder with plastic pages and little pockets. She saved concert tickets, sports tickets, raffle tickets. She saved beer mats, writing the date on them and what she ate or drank at the restaurants she stole them from.
She tried to get extras of things, one to use and one to save, one to display and one to keep in the box. When her favorite shampoo or conditioner was discontinued, she saved a little bit of the last bottle in a jar, so she would always be able to open it up and remember the scent, how her hair had smelled at a certain time of her life.
She became a teacher. She took pictures of each of her classes on the first and last days and on special occasions. She kept her pictures in the envelopes with the negatives, wrote the dates on the outsides and ordered them in a plastic waterproof box. When she got her digital camera she kept all of her pictures in computer folders and sub-folders, carefully labeled with dates and details. She took many pictures, trying to depict things from all angles, never knowing what she would find most important later on. She made a new music mix every month, and chose a picture to go with each and typed up the song list and dated them and organized them oldest to newest.
When she cooked special meals, she took pictures, and put the pictures in a book with the recipes copied out underneath. She saved wine corks, and wrote notes on them about the meals the wines accompanied. She kept the pads of paper she doodled on when she talked on the phone. She dated the doodles. She saved calendars (stickered with different stickers for days she exercised, days she practiced the guitar, days she wrote in her journal). She saved datebooks, bank statements, emails, she archived her emails into folders and downloaded them in zip files and sometimes she printed them and put them into binders.
She often dreamed about packing. In the dreams, she was always in a hurry, and she always had to decide what she'd need to bring with her. Sometimes she had to get out of a burning house, and she had to choose what to save.
She never lost things, not even pens. She could always account for all of her belongings at all times. When she traveled she counted the number of bags she brought with her and she stopped to re-count every time she sat down or stood up or relocated. She put her boarding passes in special pockets. She opened her bag every once in a while and touched them, to be absolutely sure they were still there. She saved the airplane itineraries she printed for trips. When she traveled, she collected spoons, shot glasses, postcards, little plastic license plates with her name on them. She collected Christmas ornaments, then Halloween decorations, then Easter. She collected corked glass bottles full of sand.
After hikes she pressed pine needles and sweet ferns and autumn leaves into her hiking journals that mapped her routes.
She kept all these things, neatly organized and labeled. Someday she might want to look back and see how she had lived.
She saved all of her high school binders, full of worksheets and quizzes and papers and notes. She saved her journals in a fireproof box. She saved her high school swim cap, even though it disintegrated into powder over the years. She saved all of her ragged racing suits. When her other favorite clothes started to wear out, she stopped wearing them, in order to preserve them for special occasions.
She saved the lighter a friend gave her in college, even though she didn't smoke. She saved the McDonald's toys she got when they went out for late-night snacks. She saved programs for plays. She saved movie tickets and put them into a binder with plastic pages and little pockets. She saved concert tickets, sports tickets, raffle tickets. She saved beer mats, writing the date on them and what she ate or drank at the restaurants she stole them from.
She tried to get extras of things, one to use and one to save, one to display and one to keep in the box. When her favorite shampoo or conditioner was discontinued, she saved a little bit of the last bottle in a jar, so she would always be able to open it up and remember the scent, how her hair had smelled at a certain time of her life.
She became a teacher. She took pictures of each of her classes on the first and last days and on special occasions. She kept her pictures in the envelopes with the negatives, wrote the dates on the outsides and ordered them in a plastic waterproof box. When she got her digital camera she kept all of her pictures in computer folders and sub-folders, carefully labeled with dates and details. She took many pictures, trying to depict things from all angles, never knowing what she would find most important later on. She made a new music mix every month, and chose a picture to go with each and typed up the song list and dated them and organized them oldest to newest.
When she cooked special meals, she took pictures, and put the pictures in a book with the recipes copied out underneath. She saved wine corks, and wrote notes on them about the meals the wines accompanied. She kept the pads of paper she doodled on when she talked on the phone. She dated the doodles. She saved calendars (stickered with different stickers for days she exercised, days she practiced the guitar, days she wrote in her journal). She saved datebooks, bank statements, emails, she archived her emails into folders and downloaded them in zip files and sometimes she printed them and put them into binders.
She often dreamed about packing. In the dreams, she was always in a hurry, and she always had to decide what she'd need to bring with her. Sometimes she had to get out of a burning house, and she had to choose what to save.
She never lost things, not even pens. She could always account for all of her belongings at all times. When she traveled she counted the number of bags she brought with her and she stopped to re-count every time she sat down or stood up or relocated. She put her boarding passes in special pockets. She opened her bag every once in a while and touched them, to be absolutely sure they were still there. She saved the airplane itineraries she printed for trips. When she traveled, she collected spoons, shot glasses, postcards, little plastic license plates with her name on them. She collected Christmas ornaments, then Halloween decorations, then Easter. She collected corked glass bottles full of sand.
After hikes she pressed pine needles and sweet ferns and autumn leaves into her hiking journals that mapped her routes.
She kept all these things, neatly organized and labeled. Someday she might want to look back and see how she had lived.
posted by Elizabeth Thorpe at 2:12 AM
1 Comments:
This is so you -- I think I understand a little more why you have such a hard time throwing things away :)
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