Category Archives: Musings

I Want a Time Machine

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Aunt Carol (left) and Mom (right)

Aunt Carol (left) and Mom (right)

My aunt Carol died last night.  Her husband Jimmy, my mother’s brother, died a few years ago and his sister, my Aunt Dorothy, died not long after he did.

Leonard and Trixie Bodnum, Jimmy and Dorothy’s parents and my grandparents, have been gone for over half my lifetime now.  My dad’s death happened almost as long ago as that. All that is left now from the generation preceding mine is my mom, Rosemary.

Bottom (L to R_ Dorothy and Mom Top (L to R) Jimmy and me

Bottom (L to R_ Dorothy and Mom Top (L to R) Jimmy and me

When I was growing up, this is the family that surrounded me.  These people and their children were the core of my world.  Sure friends and neighbors and school were all part of my life, but these were the people most closely connected with me.  The ones I trusted to put up with my self-absorbed tantrums and to be there at my birthday parties despite that. To share in my successes and at the same time remind me not to get too big for my britches.

I wrote a short essay once, Grandma’s Pennies, that was recently published in Fundamentally Female. It gives only a small glimpse of the joy my cousins and I experienced on Sundays at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  I could write a whole book about it, and maybe I will someday.  But today it hurts to remember those times.  Because they are gone, and with the passing of each loved one that remembers them, the memory of them will also soon be gone.  My cousins and I will be the only ones left.  When we leave, those experiences die with us.

And I don’t want them gone.  I want to relive them again, go back in time and pretend to be horses running across the grassy back yard under the apple tree.  I’m not asking to stay there.  No way do I want to start my life at five years old and do it all over again.  But I want a time machine, a DeLorian, that allows me to pick a day and time and visit once again, in reality, not just memories.

I would always go back on a Sunday, though the time of day might vary.  Sometimes I want to go back at lunch time and have grindy sandwiches and potato salad and red Jello with bananas around the huge kitchen table. Another time I’d like to be there right about sunset on a summer evening, chasing fireflies.  Or maybe in winter we could build a snow fort under the branches of the Bridal Wreath bushes by the front porch.

Donna, Carol, me, Betty, Joe

Donna, Carol, me, Betty, Joe

But no matter what time or season I pick, I want everyone to be there.  Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jack, Uncle Jim and Aunt Carol, Aunt Dorothy.  Mom and Dad. My cousin Joe and I could argue over who gets the best spot on the floor to watch The Wonderful World of Disney.  Carol could wait patiently on her stomach, heels in the air as she sings along to the show’s theme song.  Donna and JB could sit on their mom’s laps and start getting sleepy.

Can you hear it now?  “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.  When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.”

Joe, me, Donna, Carol 1963 at our favorite place in the world

Joe, me, Donna, Carol 1963 at our favorite place in the world

Possessed

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HoarderWhat is it about ownership that makes it hard to let go of our worldly possessions?

If you’ve ever watched the show Hoarders, you probably sat there wondering how anyone could have their head so screwed up that they would find it distressing when asked to throw away things that most people could recognize as unhealthy trash. Yet when my Mom and I spent a few days trying to clean out her basement, I saw a similar uneasiness at work in her mind.

The longer we worked, the more difficult it became to make a decision about each object. Which bin to put the thing in, trash it, donate it, or keep it? I could see the angst and confusion as she weighed the matter like it was something vastly important, like there would be a grade given at the end of the test and dire consequences for not passing with flying colors.

I’ve been thinking about moving back to Illinois one day and there are times when I sit here and think how much work that would be. You have to pack all this crap up, pay big bucks to have someone haul it away, or almost as many bucks to load it into a truck and drive across country with it yourself. How much easier it would be if I could just throw a few things in a suitcase, invite my friends to cart away anything they wanted, and throw the rest in the dumpster.

Then I start thinking about things with sentimental value. My mom’s hope chest would not fit in my car, and I can’t give that away or throw it out. In my bedroom, I have a bookcase and nightstand that are painted antique green. Remember that antique painting technique that was popular in the 60’s? Yeah, that’s how long I’ve had those. I reclaimed them from my great grandmother’s basement and painted them when I was in high school. They pretty much look like crap compared to some beautiful pieces I could buy now if I had the money. Except, well, they still do the job, don’t they?

Oh, and I just bought that pillow-top mattress a year ago and it is so comfortable and they are so expensive to replace. And the Ikea entertainment center is useful because you can take it all apart and pretty much configure it any way you want to fit any room. Then there’s the Mirra chair I bought after years of using an uncomfortable folding chair at my desk.

You get the idea. When it comes to the point where I am trying to pare down the items in my tool box and end up filling a plastic sandwich bag with odd screws and plastic bits because what if I need them when I finally remember what they go with, aren’t I almost as strange as that hoarder who can’t throw away the carcass of her dead cat?

I have moved many times in my life, and always had to let go of some possessions as not worth the energy to relocate. I don’t even remember what most of those things are anymore. I know this, my head tells me this. Yet still my closet has a box of dresses I love but will probably never fit into again, and the carcass of a once-stuffed teddy bear my dad gave me sits in the hope chest that won’t fit in my car.

Why do we cling to things? Because they are our possessions, or because they possess us?