Friday, October 29, 2010

"Gonna take a Sentimental Journey, Gonna set my heart at ease."


Sometimes I think I should take 90% of what I say on this blog into my next visit with my Grandmother at the Nursing Home. I would sit and read each melancholy entry, one weepy emo one after another, and let her say "hush up", curse under her breath in Polish and she would tell me how much of what I say is bogus. Cuz I know she would. She would say, "Nonsense. Stop worrying." and would then offer me a 15-year-old chocolate.

Instead, I'm taking it to the world! Makes SO much more sense, right? No?

Instead of visiting her (I can't right now because she lives thousands of miles away in New York *sigh*), I'm going through the box of things she has given me over the years.

Like this purse:


An old, 1920s flapper mesh purse made by the Mandalian Manufacturing Company. Gram stored it in an old checkbook box with her bags of pennies and dried out markers. I've held onto it for almost 12 years now. No story attached. No significance. Just the vague sentimental value I gave to it. My grandmother was a teensy-weensy bit of a hoarder. Not enough to be on television, but enough to have us all calling eachother saying "Why did Gramma save bottle caps from every year since 1962?" Or, "I have three copies of Ladies Home Living from 1986 and she's taped photos of flowers and frogs on the inside. Do you know why?"

(I think I get some of my eccentricity from her.)

Gram is known for keeping everything. The things that do have real sentimental and (sometimes) monetary value are tucked away. I know those things. I take them out every now and then to brush my fingers along their surfaces and listen for stories. Because you, my friend, know that I love old things. Things with a story. Things that smell like an old barn attic.

But then there's everything else. The non-story pieces. The ones that I keep thinking "One day I will look at this and be so thankful I kept it." However they are becoming things that have more of a hold on me and my imagination than I have of them.

Time to purge, I say!! 

In any case, I pulled out this purse. Admired it's time-lasting beauty. Imagined who enjoyed it. Pictured it hanging off the wrist of some alluring woman taking a drag from her quellazaire in some smoky speakeasy. Then I Googled it's worth and promptly posted it on Ebay. Want to attach your own vague sentimental value to this purse with no story, but ageless beauty?


You can buy it! :)

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