Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Power of Free


I am an unstoppable hoarder. I have never met a cigarette package on the ground I didn't have to have. Or postage stamps, or postcards, or letters, or cards, invitations, gallery announcements, ticket stubs, receipts.

I cleaned out some drawers today. I found camera lenses tossed with empty TOP tobacco boxes (which has the most brilliant design ever) with Soviet stamps and q-tips. If I had been going through someone else's I would have thought they were crazy. Each scrap of paper, like a physical metonymy, carries with it a memory of a place, or a person. I reviewed a good ten years of my life this afternoon. I filled a bag with odds and ends-- scraps I couldn't use, lenses for cameras I don't have, mysterious objects I kept because they were shiny. I put an ad on Craigslist, in the free section, and within minutes, I had a taker. I didn't have to put my treasures in the garbage, they are going to a good home. I am so happy. Cleaning is fun again.

2 comments:

Colleen Franklin said...

What about the Jar of Buttons?
(SFX: heavy breathing, BMX pedaling)
"2 dollars.....I want my 2 dollars!"

Carmen said...

rosa, you will get that jar of buttons! its got your name on it!

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