The Stories of Stuff

My grandma used to stay with us a couple of times a year when I was little. I loved her visits. She'd stay for a couple of weeks, and we always had the best time together. She loved telling stories and was also very long-suffering about listening to my endless stories. We were a pair, for sure!

One day, Grandma asked me if I wanted to hear a story about the history of the Cross pen. Now granted, I was not the history lover then that I am now. But I already loved writing, so hearing about how a pen came to be sounded fairly interesting. I said yes and sat back to learn how the Cross pen came into existence.

I became lost fairly quickly. Not lost in the story. Lost about the story. She was telling me about some man from her church and I remember thinking...Grandma goes to church with the guy who invented the Cross pen? That's weird.

I kept listening, and the more she talked, the more confused I became. I even stopped her once and said, "Wait. You said this is about the history of the Cross pen, right?" She nodded and continued.

At long last, I figured it out. She wasn't telling me about the person who invented the Cross pen. She was telling me the history of her Cross pen. One that had been given to her as a gift - engraved with her name.

Of course by the time I figured that out, I'd missed most of the story, and it had been fairly detailed, so there was no time to ask for a do-over.

But even though I have no details on the history of the Cross pen (hers or the company as a whole), I do have her Cross pen in my office. It sits with my writing utensils, engraved with her name. I don't use it, because it doesn't fit my hand the way it fit hers. (She had much more slender hands than I do, and it's a skinny little pen. I need big old fat pens that don't make my hands cramp when I write for years on end.) 

I keep it, though, because her (granted, confusing) story that day taught me an important lesson that has stayed with me. That was the day I learned to care about the things I have and the stories of how they came to belong to me. 

I don't need a bunch of stuff. I don't want a bunch of stuff. But I want to be able to walk past everything in my house and know the story of its history in my life. 

I want to sit on this couch and look at our little electric fireplace heater and remember that it was the gift Ryan and I gave each other the Christmas after we built our sun porch. I want to remember that we sat out there on chilly days, huddled close to its heat. It makes me remember our sweet porch and the multiple memories we made there in a very short amount of time. It gives me hope that one day we might have another porch like that one, where we can put this little fireplace again and make more memories in its faux glow.

I want to look across the room and see our Surrender Cross hanging on the wall and remember the day I interviewed Jackie Drew on The Conversation Cafe. She was one of my first few guests, and after our interview, she gifted me the cross we have in our home. And when the next Valentine's Day rolled around, Ryan ordered a sign made of reclaimed wood with "Surrender" burned into it, which now hangs above the cross. I love thinking about the prayers we've surrendered on that cross in the time we've owned it.

I want to glance into the dining room and see the white pitcher holding fresh flowers. That pitcher was a gift waiting for me in my room one year when I spoke at a women's retreat at my beloved Webster Lake. Ryan makes sure it stays filled with fresh flowers, and right now it's stocked with red roses from our monthiversary last week. 

I want to walk past Brutus the metal rhino head that I gave to Ryan as an anniversary gift a few years ago. He saw it in TJ Maxx and loved it, so I bought it for him. When he worked at the rehab hospital, it was his coat hanger in his cloffice. Now it sits on our buffet as a very strange and out-of-place conversation piece in a mostly farmhouse-y apartment. 

I want to look up at the lantern that sits on top of our kitchen cabinets and remember my WBCL friend, Cindy, who gave me that for my birthday one year. It's still stuffed with hydrangea blooms that she put in it when she gave it to me. It's a sweet reminder of her, our friendship, and all the many conversations we had inside her office when I'd wander by...and then wander in.

On and on it goes throughout the apartment. The things themselves don't mean nearly as much as the memories of how they came to live here. The people who gifted them. The moments they were chosen. The life we've lived with them. 

And I learned how to appreciate it all from a little silver Cross pen.