The Stuff of Stories
“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” ~ James Baldwin
I like to say that I am a collector (some might disagree and say I just am addicted to keeping everything and buying more). Online acquisitions have made “collecting” so much easier than it used to be. I love easy flowing gel ink pens, books and new socks 😊. I love looking at my shelves (some say full of “junk”) I say, full of “stories” that talk to me of adventures, of my parents and their parents stories, or my children’s escapades.
The weight of all this “stuff” is, at least for me, easier to acquire than it has been to let go of. A lesson hard to master when one lives in the same home for decades while closets, and drawers, and attics and storage sheds fill up as the older ones leave and new little ones come along.
I can remember so clearly, a green porcelain, rearing horse that’s sat on Aunt Bea’s bookshelf. When she gave it to me, she was 101 years old and she shared its short story. This was the first thing she bought out of a catalogue with her S&H green stamps. That was it, no big adventure, no real value, just a trinket. Ahh, but the history in that story and the story I am remembering writing about it.
Many of “my” generation may remember when our parents or grandparents went shopping at certain stores, they got green stamps back with their receipt. (S&H Green stamps were popular in the US from 1896-1980). Each stamp was a reward for X number of dollars spent at these stores or gas stations. You got a free paper booklet to start, and pasted the stamps into squares on their printed pages.
How well I remember that. My sister and I each had a book and we split up the stamps when they came and put them in our booklets. Each completed booklet had a spendable value in a catalogue or at a Green Stamp store.
I don’t remember a catalogue, but I do remember going to an S&H store in Fresno CA. I believe it was on Shields, West of Maroa, or maybe Van Ness. We wandered around the shelves lined with goodies and shopped in the aisles that were priced within our books range or the number of pages we had stamps glued on. I do not remember for sure, but I think you could use stamps and money if you didn’t have enough stamps to pay for your “prize”.
All that said just to remember this story about a rearing green, porcelain or probably plaster, horse on Aunt Bea’s bookshelf. If you didn’t know the history of S&H green stamps, would this story about a horse make any difference? Or would it just be a trinket on a bookshelf my grandsons give to Goodwill, its origin and family related story, lost to the ages?
A friend, packing for a long move, was going through generations of boxes of her “stuff” and shared with me that she finally just started taking pictures of the “things” and writing their stories on the photo so she could let the “stuff” go.
My solution for now, when I was packing for a short move after 40+ years in the same house? I wrote this horse’s story on little piece of paper, rolled it up, and stuffed it up inside that hollow horse along with a dime that fit through the opening in the bottom. Maybe the jingle of that dime will send an inquiring mind on a journey to find that story and it will live on in another generation, even if the green rearing horse ends up on a shelf of trinkets at a Goodwill Store.
I think it would be found by a mother shopping for her little girl that loves horses. It will make the perfect Christmas gift for her little girl, perhaps becoming part of another’s adventure and writing a new story for another family.
For now, I must go in search of that little green horse still packed away in a box somewhere (I hope) restore it to its rightful place on my bookshelf of memories.
Remembering the stories of our things can trap us, as the quote above says, in history. Or they can remind us of our own stories, The ones that we can share that tell people about who we are, and where we’ve come from. It’s in the remembering of that kind of history, that we remember the roots that anchor us into who we are and where we have come from. They also remind us, in the telling of some of the harder ones, of how we have come to be that tree standing in a field, bending with the gale force wind in a storm and standing upright again when the sun shines.
Rooted in the depths of our history, we remember, and we move on. “Owning the truth of others, negates any purpose of having our own mind,” I read in an article by Erin Hanson.”
The tragedy comes when we stop telling our stories, when we erase or forget where we’ve come from, what it took for “us” to get here, and who we are now because of it. Good bad and ugly, our stories are the bricks that have paved the road we walked to get here today. Break them up (forget them) and all we have left is a crushed-up road-base to hold the truth of others stories that will pave the path ahead, negating the purpose of our own stories and our personal journey.
Keep telling your stories, they matter, you matter, and have a blessed, memory making weekend.
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“Get my Free Gift Living An Intentional Life”
Vicki Dobbs is a bold and adventurous warrior walking a path of heart to manifest spirituality in everyday lives. She opens existential gateways for individuals to face their challenges and embrace these tests as the great teachers that they are.
Her goal is to see everyone walk in beauty and balance every day of their lives empowered by the voice of their own authentic truth.
Through Wisdom Evolution and Sacred Wisdom Workshops, Vicki creates opportunities for others to make deep personal changes through experiential classes, ceremony, sacred art and story. She endeavors to inspire others to create their lives intentionally. Vicki is an Inspirator of everyday awareness, an Instigator of spontaneous stories and a Connoisseur of Creativity. Gratitude and grace sprinkled with humility and humor are the medicine she brings to the world.
As an Elder, Teacher and Entrepreneur, Spiritual Coach, Ordained Minister and Crafter of Sacred Art and Tools, Vicki perceives life’s journey as an ever-upward spiraling ascension of the human spirit leading her to wisdom, wholeness and authenticity.
Her experience includes being trained in the Harner Method of Shamanic Counseling and the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition of Cross Cultural Shamanism. She is a Graduate Teacher and Mentor with the Lynn Andrews Center For Sacred Arts and Training and has been the Administrator and Writers Guide for Writing Spirit, the School.
Vicki is also an Artist of the Spirit Certified Spiritual and Energetic Life Coach, a Graduate Mentor in the AoS program and a founding member of HeatherAsh Amara’s Warrior Goddess Leadership Team and Facilitator of the Warrior Heart Practice.
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