I think a lot of us do this, I can’t be the only one --- protect our ‘good’ things so they don’t get hurt or broken. When I was little and I’d get a new blouse or dress, I’d leave it hanging for weeks, maybe months. My mother couldn’t understand it; she’d have had it on immediately. But, I didn’t want to get it dirty, wrinkled, whatever.
But, years later, I’m still doing that --- holding off, not using things that are beautiful because they are beautiful and could be hurt, broken etc. I will only use my Writing Retreat mug on Sundays as I’m so afraid of breaking it. Why Sunday should make me any less clumsy is anyone’s guess.
How long is this going to last? How long do we have to live? --- None of us know. I’ve lost many friends younger than I am, so, what am I waiting for?
But, if I wear the pale pink tee shirt (instead of the dark gray), it could get stained. If I use one of Tommy’s bowls (Tommy was a guy in my old neighborhood in Philadelphia who is long dead; he was in his late 80’s when I bought the two bowls from him), I could break it. Every time I see the bowls, I think of him and, though I love them --- the color, the strength, the weight, the age of them, I end up protecting them, for fear I could hurt them and, instead, use the thinner, bright white, no-magic-in-it-bowl left behind by my neighbor. It has neither the beauty nor character of Tommy’s bowls.
Am I afraid if a bowl breaks that I will break Tommy, break his memory, and lose him? And, what about the pink tee shirt? Sure I’m frugal to a fault and don’t want to buy another one and don’t always do too well with stain removal techniques. But, there is no Tommy involved here, no memories of a sweet older man in his funny little shop, cluttered with treasures. Who would I be hurting? --- The chain sneaker shop that sells the tees at 5 for $20?
Once, I threw away a pair of terribly grubby sneakers into a barrel on the West Side Highway as I neared work. They were gross. But, I then walked back and pulled the sneaks out; it was my 2nd or 3rd year living in New York, ‘pounding the pavement’ as they say. I stood on the West Side Highway during morning rush hour with tons of traffic whizzing by and held those sneaks and cried. Look where they had taken me, look where I had come. I had moved to this wonderful city, I had walked and walked to find my first apartment, and to quickly find another when that fell through a few days after I moved in. I walked to many a temp agency in these sneaks and explored it all --- Central Park, Prospect Park, Coney Island, Jones beach, Oyster Bay, Seacliff, Chelsea, Soho, the Lower East Side, Harlem, the Bronx, Queens and marvelous Brooklyn.
So, it wasn’t just sneaks I was throwing away that day on the West Side Highway, it was a legacy. They had carried me far, they had been my friends. The sneaks had helped introduce me to places and people and scenery I would never forget. They weren’t just old grubby sneaks with not a speck of tread left, though they were definitely that. They were an institution, they were venerable, they should have been framed, covered with gold gilt like baby shoes and shown in a gallery.
Mary Pat Kane
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