Memories

Even when I was a teenager, I was enamored with the idea of being a minimalist. I read stories about people who owned only 100 things, and I still look with fondness upon the time when everything I owned fit in the Pontiac Grand Am I owned.

But of course, even then I had stored a few boxes at my parents' house, full of photos and yearbooks and childhood dolls. After I bought my house, my parents happily passed off those boxes. While I had looked through some of them, I had also added mementos from my years since then.

Ideally, I'd like to own just a small shoebox of precious things, items that I don't display but can't bear to give away. Today I decided I was ready to tackle the two large boxes of mementos. Six hours later, I had a huge pile of recycling, many electronic photos of the items I didn't want to forget but didn't want to keep, and a small number of things to save. 

It wasn't an easy day. I still can't look at things from my marriage and wedding without crying. I can't bear to write about those things, but here are items that spurred some happier memories.

This is the rubric from my sophomore-year speech class. We had to make a persuasive speech, and the teacher wrote, "I can't write enough about how good this speech was!" In truth, I agreed. Doing research for the, "Benefits of Vegetarianism," as I titled it, was what convinced me to give up meat. I like to that the speech was so good I persuaded myself. And I'm still vegetarian, thirty years later.

My brother and I attended a public elementary school that followed a Montessori pedagogy. Part of the child-centered learning took place through "stations" all over the classrooms. Kids could wander over to the geography staion and make a map using the map puzzle pieces, or color and label the parts of the tongue at the science station. Over time, you were supposed to complete a balanced number of activities. The comment on this report card from third grade says, "Renee didn't complete enough items on Science check-off list. She still spends too much time reading library books in class." I wish I could go back in time and tell my teacher it all turned out okay - I eventually learned enough science, you just had to average over graduate school.

When I lived in Germany the first time, I made a dear friend who also loved to sing. Whenever we'd get together we'd teach each other songs and learn the harmonies. The internet didn't exist, and neither of us had money to buy songbooks, so I remember carefully photocopying folk songs and making a little book. Later that year we traveled to the UK and sang in many a station while waiting for the next train. We weren't busking, just killing time. I wonder if the other passengers enjoyed it or wish we'd go away...