Is Your Home A Personal Museum?

My friend Gary Ferrington writes a post each week, a memoir of growing up in a small town in the 1940’s and 50’s in Oregon. They always make me think. (His FB page link is https://www.facebook.com/gw.ferrington He is a wonderful writer.

This recent post was a departure and it really got me thinking. Here are the opening two paragraphs.

Have you ever contemplated that each morning, you wake up in a personal museum narrating the story of your life? Though it may not be immediately apparent, consider this perspective: a museum is dedicated to the display and preservation of culturally significant objects. In a parallel manner, our homes function as archives for a multitude of meaningful objects, each contributing to the narrative of our lives and offering insights into our identities as individuals or families.

Within the confines of our homes, we curate and display items that bring us personal joy and carry cultural and emotional significance. This not only enriches our living spaces but also offers insight as to who we are to those who visit and take notice. When others observe and inquire about certain objects we are often prompted to share stories and memories associated with them.

As a writer and a filmmaker this really hit home. I can wander around my house and be swept up with all of the things I’ve accumulated over the years that have stories that I’m always happy to share when asked.

No matter how many times I move or decide to declutter, I end up hanging on to many of the things that are “clutter”.

I justify it by saying, these items spark ideas that end up in my work.

Now I’m wondering, what do these items say about me?

Every night when I go to bed I crawl under a crocheted blanket that a college girlfriend’s mother made for me back in 1975. I have no idea what happened to the former girlfriend but I love this blanket.

Hell, I still own the 1970 Toyota Land Cruiser I bought back in 1974 when I was seventeen. It’s no longer my daily driver but I still love taking it out on weekends. If that car could talk it would regale you with all sorts of adventures we’ve had over the 49 years I’ve owned it.

I’m not a hoarder. I don’t have piles of stuff stacked all over, but I have always subscribed to the notion if I have to purchase something new, I’ll spend a little extra money and get something of higher quality that will last. And I take care of it.

Which really messes me up when I have to spend a ton of money to buy a new phone or computer knowing that I’ll have to buy another in a few years because of the tech companies planned obsolesce.

In the early 80’s I purchased a red vinyl western chair from the fifties with an embroidered horse head on the back cushion and wagon wheel arm rests for $15.00. It’s amazingly comfortable and doesn’t match anything else I own.

I have two banks I got as a kid. There’s no money in them.

There’s a bowling trophy I won in 1969 along with a blue bowling ball from that same year. I haven’t bowled in decades.

I write at a desk my father had at his junky used car lot in the mid 1960’s. It’s not a nice desk. It was probably cheap and my father picked it up used, which is how he was. Am I like him in this regard? I have done major moves in my life and somehow I always manage to hang on to this old desk?

If you ask my daughter, or a lot of my friends, they’ll tell you I have an aversion to shopping, especially buying clothes. In fact I’ve been wearing blue jeans, black t-shirts, and slip on Vans for as long as I can remember. Now I do have other clothes that I wear at times, like an old red sweatshirt. It’s worn and comfortable.

One day my daughter was looking at a photo of me and a couple of the dogs I had long before she was born. “Hey Dad, is that the same sweatshirt you’re wearing right now?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“You’ve been wearing that same sweat shirt for over thirty years?”

“I guess so…”

Now there are many more items I could highlight around my home, like the plywood bookcase I built in 7th grade shop class, or the myrtle wood table I made in 8th grade.

And now that my parents have passed away I have their dressers and the double bed frames and night stands my grandmother purchased for my father and his brother in the 1930’s. And don’t get me started about the cast iron skillets and cooking utensils of theirs that I hang on to as well.

These things are not packed away in boxes. They get used all the time. Well, not the bowling ball...

So what does this say about me?

Is my home really a museum to my family and earlier generations? Or am I cheap and refuse to buy new things? Am I longing for the past? I am selective about the things I have hung on to. They are practical. Perhaps I miss a time when things were built to last.

Or maybe I like the memories these items evoke. There is a sense of comfort surrounding myself with parts of not only my past but my parents and family members as well. All of these items have a history. Some of which I know, others I make up.

There is something soothing about those items we choose to surround ourselves with.

Have I become my families historian? Yes, I also have all of the old family photo albums.

Do I wish to live in the past? Not at all. I’m quite happy where I am today although I do miss my parents and others no longer with us. A lot of these items connect me to a younger version of myself and maybe that’s what, or who I really miss. The younger me.

I haven’t figured out why I hate shopping and buying clothes and nothing that I wear belongs in any kind of a museum. In fact when I’m done with an article of clothing it’s only suitable for the trash.

Take a look around your home. What do your belongings say about you?

In the spirit of Gary’s original post, I would ask you all not to use a flash camera when you’re photographing the items in my museum.

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