Souvenirs

Since I was a child, I have always loved traveling and dreamed of visiting and living in foreign countries when I grew up.  And an important part of travel for me has always been its physical manifestations, which is to say souvenirs.  

I think I watched every episode of the Brady Bunch multiple times in my childhood, but a particular one sticks in my mind, "Jan's Aunt Jenny."  It features a globe-trotting aunt with an outsized personality and a knack for obtaining interesting objects in her travels.  I don't remember being drawn to her outrageous stories and name-dropping--in fact I had forgotten all about those until I googled the episode for this post--but I definitely wanted to emulate her world travel, her souveniring, and her distinctive gift-giving.

And, in fact, I have had the rare privilege to have traveled pretty extensively and to have even lived abroad a few times--in the UK (for a year), Germany (for six weeks), and France (for two years).  

I have a teapot with colorful flowers from the year that I lived in the UK and a handmade ceramic container for tea from China.  I have Christmas ornaments from Germany and Finland and Sweden that remind me of winter trips to those countries.  I brought back table linens from Korea and Turkey and Mexico and India.  A painting I bought in Costa Rica hangs in my front hall.  I have a necklaces from Italy and Greece and earrings from Hungary and France.  I have t-shirts and beach towels and baseball caps from ... everywhere.  And every time I see or use one of those things, I am transported back to that trip, to that moment.  Perhaps it's a sign of personal weakness or lack of imagination, but I find enormous comfort in these memories made tangible.

There is, however, an inescapable consequence to my penchant for souvenirs:  I have a lot of stuff, sometimes so much that it becomes a burden to transport, use, and store.  

So over the years, I have developed some strategies for souvenir purchasing which mitigate the logistical issues.  Most obviously, I go small.  I have a coffee table in my den at home that my father built out of an old type tray.  The type tray is something like 2'x3' and has many small divisions in it, resulting in dozens of cubbies.  And there is a piece of glass mounted on top of the type tray so that everything in it is on display.  Many, many souvenirs over the years have found their way into the coffee table.  It has coins in foreign currencies, tiny hand-painted figurines from Israel, unused tokens for riding the carrousel in Toulouse, hand-carved wooden chickens from Korea, a toy car that belonged to my dad, a tiny replica of the Rosetta Stone, a small chunk of the Berlin Wall, pins from Soviet Russia, a miniature tea set brought back from China by my aunt over 80 years ago (!), and many, many other tiny reminders of times past or trips taken. 

I also tend to seek out additions to existing collections, perhaps because they already have a place to live when I bring them back home.  For instance, I have a pretty extensive collection, perhaps 40-50 at this point, of (usually handmade) metal animals.  They range in size from smaller than my thumbnail to bigger than a textbook, although most are small enough to fit easily in my purse.  For a while, I tried to find one from every country I visited, so I have quite an array, from a Finnish reindeer to an Indian monkey to a Greek dolphin.  I also have an impressive collection of wooden elephant puzzles, although most are in a box in the basement now seeking a more permanent home for display somewhere in the house.  I also have a large collection of felted wool and other fiber art Christmas ornaments.  Those are easy to transport home, of course--small and unbreakable--but my tree might be reaching its limits.  So, in some sense, I justify acquisition because I am good at classification and organization---like a librarian always has room on the well-managed shelves for another worthy book.

Finally, I try to find souvenirs that I actually need.  That category can be, at any given time, vanishingly small, but I can sometimes think of something.  One example is a scissors sharpener that I bought at a market recently.  It had the distinctive Languiole bee on it, and it was being sold on a table with many kitchen gadgets, but I could not figure out what it was.  I asked seller, and, upon receiving the answer, thought that it would be useful since I don't own one but I do own some dull scissors.  And at 5 euros, it seemed like exactly the type of souvenir I should be buying.  

This year, I have acquired a number of Olympics-related objects--tote bags, plastic tumblers--which I need less than any person on earth does, probably, but will try to find room for in my luggage.  I also got a charming hand-printed pillow cover in Spain, some fans made from wax cloth in Cote d'Ivoire, an excellent duster (coat) in Italy, and some hand-blown glasses here in Paris.

By the way, there is a whole other category of purchases that I've made during our year here:  staple items that make my life easier and more enjoyable that I would rather not go a year without.  I'm talking about knives and other cooking utensils, additional glasses and plates, cutting boards and platters, teapots, books, running shoes, trail hiking shoes, athletic clothes, casual dresses, sweaters, and so forth.  I don't think of them as souvenirs because there's nothing special about the French versions of them, but they do add to the volume of possessions we need to deal with in some way.  They are really the subject of another post (which I will never write...). 

I do find myself slowing my pace of acquisition, though, as I get older but should probably slow it much more dramatically, or even start the deacquisition process in earnest.  At a recent event I attended, I heard a poem about physical possessions that had a line that resonated with me, but which I now forget.  It was something about how our possessions protect us but also constrain us.  

Finally I am reminded of an old man I met about a dozen years ago in Crete.  He owned a coin and antique shop in Heraklion, I believe.  We stopped in his shop to have a look and ended up staying and chatting for quite a while with him.  He must have been in his 80s, and a traumatic childhood had, perhaps, aged him even more than his years.  He recounted abandoning his home and nearly everything his family owned to flee the Nazi occupation.  They lived with next to nothing, almost starving, in the rugged mountains of Crete until the island was liberated.  If anyone would cling to material possessions for security, it might be someone like him.  And cling he did.  His shop was like the overfull storage facility of a museum.  There were cabinets with dozens upon dozens of tiny drawers, each meticulously labeled with its contents, Byzantine gold coins in one, silver amulets from ancient Greece in another, and so forth.  Every spare inch of the walls of his shop were covered with paintings, Judaica, crosses and icons, antique hardware, mirrors.  Shelves groaned under the weight of dusty old volumes and boxes of other treasures.  He knew where everything was and was exceedingly proud of his collections.  And when we started to enquire about some possible purchases, his reluctance to part with any of his belongings was palpable.  (He was a shopkeeper so eventually he did, of course.)  

I think of that old man from time to time, and how he felt protected and comforted by his meticulously organized and cataloged treasures.  There is an undeniable pathos to his story, especially how he felt so possessive and reluctant to part with any of his things, but maybe there is a more hopeful element to it as well---how he was able to use them to stave off the demons of his traumatic youth.

I do not have as dramatic a backstory or as good of an excuse as the shopkeeper in Heraklion for acquiring and possessing.  I feel comforted by all of my things as well, but I have never felt his degree of possessiveness and hope I never will.  In fact, among the dozens of acquisitions I will carefully pack and bring or ship back in the next couple of weeks are many items that will end up as gifts for others.

The other items I will meticulously organize, categorize, and label as necessary when I arrive back in Boston to add to my collections.