Just Old Junk

Memories And How Things Hold Them

The other week I helped my mom set up a small garage sale. The neighborhood was doing a sale and she, as always, is trying to purge the clutter of a garage full of paraphernalia from four children all now in their thirties. We put out some tables, random knick-knacks, chairs, jewelry, drawers full of pieces of toys, just the usual chaos from a family’s home. Once I finished fixing things up, I wandered around the neighborhood. I was born and raised in the neighborhood, in that home, and having not walked around there in a while it was kind of odd. seeing the new homes being built, the new neighbors with families and children nearer to my age than my moms, was a sort of shock. This little suburban town has changed. Surprise. Luckily though the streets look mostly the same, the curmudgeonly neighbors still snooping from their porches, the parents of old friends are still there. The railing on the way to the elementary school is still the same old chain held on poles, polished from kids sliding their hands on it, maybe like my family, pretending to boardslide on it. 

The neighborhood still holds a sense of that past, where so much of it has changed and been altered, and the main drag of town is full of new consignment shops and expensive wine bars. So returning, still, feels like going back into the past, a quick and easy way to reflect on how much and how little I've changed since I was that little kid running around creeks and skating at the school, trying to fit in with my older siblings and the kids I thought were cool in class. 

It was obvious to see how much I’d grown and how my life had changed, but ultimately I’m still that curious kid, looking into the houses wondering what it is they are watching . 

After my little walk around the neighborhood, saying hey to some neighbors, I went back to my mom’s and sat with her and her friends as they dished about their neighbors, about the town. Not many people were coming by and so we were all just exploring all the junk we’d put out—empty cardboard toy boxes with Japanese Kanji written on them, cups, pieces of wood, old board games, and a couple boxes of beads. 

The beads immediately got me. My mom, when I was little, used to take us to this small bead store in San Rafael. We’d pick out a few to make necklaces or bracelets and here they all were again, this chaotic pile my mom had saved over the years just in case. As I sifted through I found odd oblong fake pearls, little bits of colorful vinyl, polished wood, all these little smooth or rough or cold or oblong shapes and textured things that, I now remembered, had defined so much of my idle moments when I was very young. And all I could remember was my mom sitting beside me, or my sister, as we took needles and made little necklaces that we’d eventually wear until they broke, got tangled with others, or just grew bored of wearing.

It wasn’t really a profound moment in itself, but it amazed me the way that my memories were tied to these things. The streets we walked around, or the beads, or even the odd pieces of wood we carried with us hold in them memories. And I’m uncertain if I mean that literally or not. These small objects carry with them the ability to remind us of whole moments of our lives that we sometimes could easily otherwise forget.

Now I’m considering all I’m surrounded by, the things in particular that I’ve used and touched for so long but am now, for whatever reason, no longer needed. I’m wondering if instead of getting rid of them all, maybe I should save some of these things, one or two of them, just for some future moment so I can be thrown back to see who I was, and admire how much and how little I’ve changed since then. 

P.S. Mom, if you read this, I’m not saying you shouldn’t purge it. You got too much crap in there :)