Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Thursday, August 11. 2016

Loving one's possessions


By New England puritanical standards it feels sinful or weak to be as attached to possessions as I am. So be it, because I never claimed to be sinless. I never claimed to be entirely free of superficiality either. Appearances have an effect on me and on everybody.


Artifacts from my life and from my family and my ancestors give me pleasure and comfort. Much of it probably has minimal monetary value (for example, you have to pay people to take away brown furniture today, even mahogany furniture, because nobody wants it) but it has meaning to me with memories attached.


Our stuff is just junk to other people.  For the love of stuff. I am my things and my things are me. I don’t want to give them up: they are narrative prompts for the story of my life.


Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Psychology, and Dr. Bliss, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 14:52 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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Regarding the minimal monetary value of many family items: After my grandparents passed on, my cousin and I were very generously bequeathed the family farm.

We were manifestly blessed by the gift but the only thing I truly wanted was a small, green 7-Up bottle with a tin sprinkle head that she used when ironing.

It disappeared during the packing and shipping of the contents of the farm probably due to it's perceived lack of worth.
#1 Tonypete on 2016-08-11 15:10 (Reply)
I am genuinely befuddled by the Catholic ethos, all the more as time passes. Or is this not Catholic?
#2 Ten on 2016-08-11 15:30 (Reply)
Sounds northeastern/Puritan to me.
#2.1 Sam L. on 2016-08-11 20:10 (Reply)
QUOTE:
Maggie switched off the basement dehumidifier as she did every year and even that absence had struck her. She had mourned in the most personal way the silencing of the steady, faithful whir that used to thrum on the floorboards. What on earth was wrong with her? she had wondered. Would she spend the rest of her days grieving for every loss equally—a daughter-in-law, a baby, a cat, a machine that dries the air out?

Was this how it felt to grow old?

— Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons
#3 Zachriel on 2016-08-12 06:46 (Reply)

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