For as long as I can remember, I have made statements like this: Things mean nothing to me. They’re all replaceable. If the house burned down today, I’d be fine just so long as I saved the animals.
I always wondered if I meant it.
A couple of weekends ago, we had an estate sale. Rebecka (the estate salesperson) was amazing. She said to take what we wanted and leave the rest.
On May 23 we took possession of the apartment. We began by selecting pieces of art we wanted to bring with us. We brought no furniture except for two beds, two comfortable chairs for the bedrooms, pots, pans, favorite dishes from South Africa and Mexico City, our clothes, bathroom stuff, and computers. We bought new living room furniture and corner desks for our computers.
And this is when I learned whether I was telling myself the truth about things.
Over the years of our marriage, GB and I had amassed a rather eclectic collection of stuff. Or it may have been anti-stuff. My parents (yes, this is significant) collected nothing. My mother had a few things hung on walls, some plates that she claimed were “fine china”, a couple of Chinese-vases on the mantle framing a still life print, some incredibly ugly pen and ink drawings of my brother and me when we were at our ugliest stages in life (think pre-teen and teen). Her idea of a garden was one tree and some manicured bushes. When they traveled, they took tours with strict itineraries. No back roads. No investigation. Ok. This was how they were comfortable traveling it just wouldn’t be the way we did it. They always brought back a present from some touristy shop. And the present was always something small but, ok, it was nice that they thought of me. My mother would always say, “We had no time to shop.” I wondered how they couldn’t. What were they doing on these trips. Just looking at places filled with other tourists looking at places?
So, when GB and I began travelling, which was early in our marriage, we sought out the places usually unvisited. No tourist shops. I made GB absolutely nuts by refusing to drive on major highways. The backroads led us to small towns, thrift stores, art galleries, and sometimes the alleys. We collected the things we liked. Sometimes we had the findings shipped, like the elephant carved of Zimbabwe railroad ties we found in South Africa. Or the bizarre sculpture (its shaped like a tongue and has drawings of whimsical animals and is titled “I have something to say”) from Mexico City. In Nicaragua, we avoided the shops that sold “I LOVE Managua” on hats, t-shirts and aprons. Instead, we visited greenhouse and farms. We found fully planted pots that were handmade by the farmer. “Could we buy that?” (Alba was with us and translated.) The collection wasn’t limited to travel finds. We collected more art than we had wall space. Sculptures for both inside and the garden. Rugs. Oh, Lord! The textiles. I found them all irresistible. Our trip to Istanbul resulted not only in the need for a new suitcase packed with rugs, but the connection with the store owner. He visited Denver annually and, of course, we bought more rugs. We found baskets made by people in the US, Canada, Rwanda, Mexico, Nicaragua, Brazil, South Africa. I even began a small collection of brooms. Of course there were items in the collection that were inherited: two sets of sterling silver, six sets of “fine china”, crystal goblets and a whole bunch of table linens.
After 48 years of collecting, our home looked pretty much like a boutique. Somewhere. It was undefinable. The living/dining room windows overlooked the garden and from wherever I stood there was something beautiful or intriguing that would gather up my memories. There was art on the terrace, the patio, the courtyard and even the chicken coop. There was no theme. Just eclectic. We loved it.
Our apartment move-in date was July 1 for only one reason: Rebecka, the estate salesperson, would take over and begin cataloguing and researching the value of the collection. She would spend the month doing that and then, the first weekend in August, she’d hold a 3-day sale to her private list of clients.
By July 1, we had moved our stuff.
I learned that I really meant what I had thought over the years. Things meant nothing. GB had more problems because, well, he’s a hoarder. Another topic for another blog.
So, what did we bring? One blue oriental carpet for the living room. Framed photos of our various dogs and cats, Alba, Eyad and Omar, Juan’s dog, Boots, my parents, GB’s families (both adopted and biological), a gigantic portrait of a yellow-lab we call Big Dog, whimsical art we found in Santa Fe and the San Juan Islands, serious depictions of conformity and our own fear of an autocracy (purchased 20 years ago), a large framed photo of an Amazonian native and his son, a bronze sculpture of two giraffes, a bronze of a Newfoundland dog, the “I have something to say” sculpture, the carved wooden elephant, framed photos GB took in South Africa, framed photos of gorillas. I selected one set of “fine china” (no clue when we’ll ever use it), my favorite blue crystal goblets, one half of one set of sterling silver and one half of the other. In our house, we had a bookshelf installed at the top of the walls. A mural mimicking it was painted in the tv room/spare bedroom. I truly loved it so I was happy to see that our new kitchen cabinets didn’t go to the ceiling. There was a soffit that needed filling with favorite from wherever, a painting of Cruiser R Roozer, some chicken art and, most important and please don’t laugh or groan, cremains of a variety of dogs and cats stored in ceramic pots. Hand-crafted, of course.
Ok. I’ll stop. I think you get where I’m going.
We took what we loved and that meant family whether human or not and a few pieces of art that held some special place in our hearts and memories.
The rest remained ready to be sold. Rebecka sold everything. Some things for amazingly ridiculously high prices and others, not so much. Turns out, we had no clue what we had collected. We didn’t think anyone else would really want it. But they did. Her research turned up things like an outdoor bench we found in an alley that was crafted in 1888. She sold it for $500. Rugs went for thousands of dollars. Now, don’t get me wrong. Our collection wasn’t “important”. Sotheby’s didn’t run over and snap everything up. But it was eclectic enough to appeal to the people who came to the sale.
Do I miss that wonderfully intriguing and eclectic collection? Nope.
It was just stuff. It was so much fun finding it all and the love and memories remain.
Air. 
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