Dear Reader – this blog is a direct continuation of the preceding blog, An Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Program – Goodbye Goyard Part 1. If you have not yet read that post then please go back and read it before you start on this next entry.
I am looking around myself at all these items I have laid out to consign, each one telling me a truth about myself and about this world. A part of me so desperately wants to hang on to many of these items, a purse I may ‘need’ later, a pair of shoes just-in-case they are the perfect match to an outfit I don’t even own yet. I want to keep items because they are expensive, precious, because they have special meaning to me.
But most of these items I have chosen to consign have been unused for a while; these items are a ‘tell,’ they expose the fact that I really have no idea what the future will hold, what I will need (otherwise would I have bought a bunch of expensive shit I barely used?). And besides, I have already learned that even the largest collection of objects doesn’t insure I will have what I need when I need it; I had a closet full of dresses and I didn’t have a single gown when I needed it for a work event. A house full of stuff, and not a single object could free me of feeling trapped when I moved to New York (actually objects -namely a new house I hated and money from my husband’s job made are what keep me trapped), or of feeling despair when I lost my father.
The longer I stared at the objects, thought through each one’s ‘story’ — the truths about impermanence they were telling me — the more I saw patterns. I decided to get up and start splitting my pile of goods into groups, each with distinctive story themes. I divided, and contemplated, as follows:
1) Items I had never worn/ worn once or twice: When I bought each of these I had a grand imagination (#4) of what it would be like to have the item and to wear it. I imagined what people would think of me, how I would feel, what I would be just by owning/using the item. But the imagination changed. And that change tells me something critical — the objects in front of me do not have the power to actualize the future, the identity, I imagine. If they did, I would have at least worn the item a few times; after all part of my imagination was having the item on, wearing it to an event, being seen in the thing. The items couldn’t even create a scenario in which I used them, better yet ‘became’ what I thought they would make me. The evidence is literally on the ground in front of me:
- There are 3 brand new green purses, with tags still attached, sitting on the floor. Each one is identical to a purse I had in the past, that I loved and wore regularly. As the original bag showed wear, I began to worry about whether in the future I would be able to find that same bag again. So I stock piled a bunch of the same bags bought while still in season and stored in my closet for later use. I bought these bags to make me prepared. But, if they really did prepare me for a future, wouldn’t they have been worn as part of that future? The were not. My bag preference changed .So these three new green purses are showing their true colors — they are powerless to do what I thought they would do. They are powerless to make me a fashionable, ever prepared, woman.
- Then there is the fur coat I had bought the thing when we first considered moving to NY . I had an image in my mind of what a fashionable, NY winter style would be, and it definitely involved mink. By the time I actually did move to NY, I had learned a few things: 1) a down jacket is warmer, easier to clean and way more comfortable. As fashionable as fur may be, winter requires function as well. 2) I fucking hate NY. I can barely stand being outside long enough to get cold. Who needs to peacock around in a fur coat when they are miserable and crushingly depressed? So this coat sure as hell didn’t prepare me for NY, otherwise it would have whispered to me “don’t fucking go!!!”
- A $400 orange sun hat from a little known fashion brand. I remember when I bought it imaging that it would make me so chic on trips to Miami or Hawaii, but its brim is so big I literally can’t see to walk around in it. Tripping over your own feet is not very chic…
I was so enamored with my imagination of what these objects did that I ignored impermanence — would I even need them and what are the 2 sides?
2) Things I wore, but my style changed: I was so sure I wanted the Etro leather jacket, the LV wool coat. I thought they would fill a need for me. They would keep me warm and make me look chic. I wore them a while, but then a new piece of information arose — that there are lighter weight/ more functional and still fashionable coats out there. I changed my style to accommodate the new information/preferences.
There are the MM6 and Dweck necklaces, both purchased when I thought rose gold/bronze necklaces were the answer to matching fall colored tops. But it started to get too complicated to dress in the morning, so I streamlined my clothing to just black base/brown base and didn’t need these accessories any more. Again new info, a new preference.
These objects tell me about how piss poor my powers of prediction are. They show me that with new facts new needs arise. With new needs, new objects are sought out. But aren’t there always going to be new facts? That is part of what my daily impermanence contemplation has been telling me. So am I just going to keep rotating through new items endlessly? Living to acquire and then dispose of stuff as the inevitably new patterns arise?
3) Things I wore, but my body changed: Micro minis I feel too old to wear now, Chanel heels I will never be able to use again thanks to a foot injury. I don’t want my body to change, to age, to break, but the objects didn’t prevent it. These objects didn’t protect me.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that just for a moment, these things worked. I look at the black boots I wore to pole dance classes and the memory of feeling so sexy in them is real. But the sense of pain and loss I feel when I look at the boots now is also real. I miss pole dancing, but I hurt my shoulder and had to quit. I miss a body I felt comfortable strutting around in boots and short shorts in, now I feel too old and flabby. Its like the clothes in this pile are mocking me, reminding me of my failing, sagging, breaking, aging body. Still, I go out and acquire new clothes, meant make me feel pretty and sexy now, within the constraints of this new, older body, I have today. How can I stop this cycle? How can I kill the hope?
Then my eyes fell on the oldest item on the floor, a red Miu Miu heart belt that doesn’t fit anymore. I remember I bought it long ago when I stopped wearing pants and hipster tees and started wearing skirts. Skirts came into my wardrobe because my hips had started to widen, my thighs got wobbly –skirts were to disguise aging in my early 30s. This throwback belt, from a period in time I barely own any clothes from anymore, from a phase I had almost forgotten, has a truth to tell — there has always been aging and change. No object is going to let me escape this fact.
My body changes, my clothes are always aging and changing too. Its just that it often happens so slowly and subtly I don’t notice for a while. My hope is born out of duration, that I can look sexy for at least some time, that this object will help me do it. But if I really think about it, the hope itself is based on my turning a bling eye to the change that is always occurring. The heart belt is proof that there was a phase before and there will be one after. The only question is am I willing to keep cycling through these phases? Are they worth it?
4) Objects that were gifts from others: Many of these are things I have rarely used, but I have been unable to part with them because they make me feel special, loved. This was the smallest pile on the floor, these were the hardest things for me to get rid of. Here in this pile are the accessories friends have given me and the purses from Eric. But, is my specialness really contingent on my owning these things? Will my loved ones love me less if I get rid of these items? Will they love me all the same if I keep the items, but start being a total bitch all the time? The truth is, I project specialness onto these objects so that they can project it back onto me. Its a trick of the mind though, like thinking a shadow or a mirror image is whats real.
When I see an object in the store, my feelings about it are pretty neutral. Sure, maybe I like it or I don’t, sometimes I’m drawn to it, but my feelings grow so much stronger once I buy –once I think the thing is mine. Which means something very important: special-ness, mine-ness, me-ness isn’t in the object, it is in my perception of the object. This is what makes one version of rupa more appealing/meaningful than another.
At that point I decided to add one more thing to the pile — a ladybug necklace Eric had given me as a gift. The truth is, my heart breaks a little at the thought of giving it way, at parting with something that makes me feel so beloved. But, maybe this is my stretch, my little further I can push outside of my comfort zone, something I can give to the dharma in hopes of making a little more merit, getting a little closer to breaking free…