More talk today about preservation. This time Suesanne and I were comparing notes about how each of our great grandfathers would cut and save ice in the winter for use in the summer. It must have been early 1900s when they were doing this, her great grandfather in North Dakota and mine in western Montana.
I wish I had all the stories my dad used to tell of those times. He was there, and took part, and knew about the tools and techniques. Simply genius really, what could be done without electricity.
Great grandpa also cut wood in the summer, and it was a symbiotic industry–the shavings from wood cutting were used to insulate and preserve the winter ice.
I just finished reading “Three Cups of Tea”. In a (unjust) nutshell, this is a true story of a man who builds relationships and then schools in the remote and poor villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan. And if any images will remind me of the abundances of my life, the stories of how little these peoples have will shine an immense spotlight on my good fortune.
I have two prominent vices. One is my propensity to make things from “nothing”–I love creating “art” from random and “insignificant” ingredients. Ribbon. Buttons. Rusted bottle caps. Pages from children’s arithmetic lessons. Of course my inclination to use such ingredients means that I must gather and store them. Honestly, I’m not a hoarder, but I do see beauty and potential in humble things, and am often loathe to part with them; they do stack up.
My second vice is an appreciation of the labor and love that goes into making some things–early American furniture, hand-thrown pottery, Chinese jade carvings, mouth-blown crystal goblets. My appreciation for the human effort of creating things makes it difficult for me to part with things, if I don’t feel they are “going to a good home”. And unfortunately, I inherited from my parents an enormous quantity of lovingly crafted items. Because I had already accumulated my own household of beautiful things, my inheritance overwhelmed my “wealth”.
Combine vice one and vice two, and I am weighted with an undeniable over-abundance.
And contrast this abundance with the simpler lives of my fore-fathers, and I am confused–how did my life get to this, and what do I do about it.
Have I “saved” too much stuff, and it’s time to find another way for my life? I believe it is.
