THE PENNY PUB

A Blue Guitar, a Puppet, and Memories of Things I Should Not Have Lost

Balancing sorrow and joy is a bitch, as always

The things I have loved the most I haven’t been able to hold onto.

A blue guitar. A soft leather briefcase. An urban studio. Several friendships. My children.

When I wake up in the middle of the night and allow my mind to wander to these losses and others, it’s the end of sleep for the night. The grieving begins again.

No, no, my children still walk the earth — thank God. But they’ve left me in several ways, most of which one celebrates: growing up, forming new life relationships, moving away, offering me advice and counsel rather than the other way around.

Like the monster in Harry Potter, I’ve shed my skin a number of times, moving from home to home, both upsizing and downsizing each time. A home store clerk — someone who earned commissions from my purchases — actually told me once that I bought too much furniture.

When I moved to Paris from the US two years ago, I brought one small suitcase, a computer, and a mandolin. Miraculously, within the first month, I found a landlord willing to rent to me, and on Halloween, I moved into an unfurnished apartment. Truly unfurnished.

It was Ikea time.

When I look at photos of my old houses and apartments, back in the States during my parenting days, I am appalled by the clutter: the papers, the books, the clothing, the computers, the skateboards, the guitars, the videotapes, and DVDs.

I also have photos of the evolution of my Paris studio over the last two years, from a single metal bed frame ordered from French Amazon, to the first plant, to a desk and folding chair, to the white pressed wood cubes that make up my sole bookcase, to the guitar and electronic keyboard I finally allowed myself. It is still a gloriously sparse living unit.

So, when I saw this week’s Penny Pub prompt, I initially thought that I no longer had a cherished possession that I could write about. Yeah, I love the few things that serve the most important functions in my life: boiling water for tea, reading and writing, lounging, playing music.

But I wasn’t able to bring any objects with me, precious or otherwise, when I first came. At the end of my summertime visit to the US a year later, I stuffed a large suitcase full of clothing: the three or four shirts I came with were, even for a newly fledged minimalist, three or four fewer than I wanted.

Then, looking at a recent photo of my studio, as I tried to decide which one to use here, I saw the figure on the wall: an Indonesian puppet that a school friend gave me when she graduated fifty-five years ago.

I don’t know why it took me halfway through drafting this story to see it again. I have displayed that traditional leather puppet in every dorm room, apartment, and office of the last fifty years. I couldn’t bring it to Paris initially; I feared for its survival because I had no idea where I would end up and how long it would take to get settled.

But in that large clothing-filled suitcase that I brought back to Paris after my first year here, I tucked the puppet between the soft shirts to protect it. And there it is, on my wall, reminding me of that astonishing gift. I adored that friend, and I love this material reminder of her kindness to a younger girl so long ago.

Oh, about the blue guitar: it’s the only thing I’ve ever won in a raffle. It was signed by a visiting musician on her way through our town. It was a good Canadian guitar, but I couldn’t get a good sound out of it, so I traded it for much less than it was worth to someone who didn’t know the artist. I’ve regretted that ever since. And it encapsulates my previous relationship to material objects. Tired of one thing? Give it away. Get another, better thing that is rarely better.

I’ve learned a lot about things over the years. Thus my current stripped-down living quarters are dictated at last by preference as well as budget.

Sometimes I get too busy mourning losses to celebrate things that are not lost: the puppet, my friends, the old fiddle I left here after a sabbatical six years ago, that a friend kept track of until I returned to Paris.

What really matters among the things I’ve lost, trashed, or left behind — the friendships, the daily contact with my children — can’t be replaced. So I try to cultivate my remaining friendships. I try to understand that for many people, as for me, parenting is the most difficult and most defining role one ever tries to fill.

And my Ikea-made apartment in the heart of Paris — it is where I wanted to end up. My job now is teaching myself that sorrow and loss, shame and regret, are organic parts of a long and fortunate life.

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