OFF THE PAGE River Jordan

OFF THE PAGE River Jordan

To hoard or not to hoard – that is the question. This word hoarder didn’t seem to be in my popular vocabulary until the show went on the air highlighting how incredibly hoardy some people can be. I have tried to tell my sons for years I am not such as these. I do not have ten thousand whatchacallits that I ordered late one night from the shopping network because they were such a deal. I do not have six of anything alike (to my knowledge). But I have other things – like antibiotics for my dog who died five years ago still in my fridge. Even though I have a new fridge they just got transferred because everyone knows that in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse those outdated antibiotics might keep somebody alive. You might laugh now but we’ll see whose laughing in the end. For anyone who has read, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy you know finding old antibiotics is better than finding solid gold. But, I digress. Here’s the thing that trips me up. Memory. Story. Things attached to the people I loved and love still even though they are gone to the over and beyond. This past week I had to finally go through the remaining fifty years of my mother’s ‘things’. Yes, I said fifty years. When she moved to Tennessee she brought fifty years of memories and all that went with it with her. Oh, and also maybe a hundred and forty years of memories from my Daddy’s old homeplace on Holmes Creek. Now, I must tell you our family inheritance of things we can’t part with are an old sign that says Boat Fishing 2.00/ Bank Fishing 1.00/No Swimming. (How far do you think that no swimming thing went?) But we have the sign and we have the money box that is up on a pole so a man can just pull up happy as you please and whistling the way fishermen whistle when they hear the fish are bitin’ – and drop his money in the money box slot. Children from three different generations were sent out there with the key that opened the box where they would gather damp dollars and the loose coins and come take part in the mighty counting of that twenty dollars. (My great-granddaddy always knew when someone slowed down and pretended to put a dollar in but did not.) We also have a door that was in the house I grew up in and is about 100 years old. Now the door goes with us everywhere we go. And, I have a biscuit bowl, a huge wooden affair that belonged to my greatgrandmother on my momma’s side. And that about accounts for all the things we can’t part with in this world. Four things that would mean nothing to nobody else in this world. But we have our MEMORIES. And here is where I fall down because I have a very, good, long memory where these things are concerned so that I have spent hours trying to figure out where to give Momma’s crystal candle holders to. Never mind that I think they are glass and were made in Japan. (Yes, Japan. They are just that old.) But what gets me is I remember momma humming Christmas music and putting red candles in them and setting them on the table with all of her Christmas dishes and placemats. Every room in our house growing up had Christmas in it like it was Cracker Barrel gift shop on crack. But again – I digress. What I have trouble with is letting go of things other people loved. Things that remind me of them. Someone just asked me – What is that you are carrying? Why, that is my Daddy’s old cane pole he fished with at the creek.

Are you going fishing? I will never fish again unless there is a Zombie Apocolypse in which I will be a champion worm slinger and a fish slayer. Then why do you have that pole? ‘Cause it was my Daddy’s silly. Who gets rid of their daddy’s fishing pole? Where’s the love? I have sixteen pocket knives that belonged to various people in my life. Growing up I never knew a man in my family that didn’t carry a pocket knife or a woman that didn’t carry a pocket knife in her purse. And you’d be amazed at how many times I’ve thought – If I only had a pocket knife but just because I own sixteen now doesn’t mean I have the presence of mind to carry one except that time I got busted for carrying one through airport security and they took it away from me. The problem is – these people are no longer alive and I think a part of me can’t let their things go because it would be like letting them go all over again. Momma’s hats, her jewelry, her favorite things. My grandmother’s statue of a blue jay. I’ve tried to get rid of for years. I can’t. It’s something she had on her dresser that she looked at that made her happy and she had so few things. And I have little pottery things my kids made in Kindergarten for Mother’s Day and brought home. They vaguely resemble the thing they were supposed to be and they mean nothing to no one but me. What I seem to be trying to do in my hoarding of sentimental things is to keep people alive. To keep the preciousness of my son’s early years with me. To pull a piece of my Grandmother back to earth. To hear my Daddy whistling up a happy, fish-bitin’ storm. To see my mother happy like she never was at any time of the year except Christmas. The truth is – I don’t need any of it. And gently, ever so gently, I am letting some of these things go. So – anyone out there collect tiny little tea sets? Because my Momma did and I’ve got about twenty. Speak up now or forever hold your peace. I’m sure one would look beautiful up on that shelf where you have all the other things you don’t need and can’t use. Sending you peace, love, and light. River

River Jordan is an author, speaker, teacher and radio host. As a southerner with a global perspective she is a passionate advocate for the power of story.

River's writing career began as a playwright and she spent over ten years writing and directing. She is the best-selling author of four novels and a three spiritual memoirs. As a critically-acclaimed author her work has been most frequently cast in the company of such writers as Flannery O'Conner, William Faulkner, and Harper Lee.