I'm unpacking boxes of bric-à-brac. A melange of seemingly disparate things: a golden Christmas ornament, an antique ironstone sugar bowl, framed portraits, lace bedspread, an antique porcelain doll with little leather shoes and blonde human hair, ribbons, sewing tools, and a rainbow of overflowing wool strips for rug hooking. All items saved from the throw-away bins my sister and I filled as we cleared out our childhood home this summer.
These items hold wonder. The golden ornament was one of a few willed to us by my father's mother. As a child, these frivolous ornaments symbolized the mystery of luxury, something we lacked. Imagine not having Christmas gifts but having golden ornaments. The sugar bowl sat near my mother's fridge, which felt like home when I looked at it. It's an unassuming cream-colored ceramic piece with a broken wood lid and a perfectly whittled wood spoon. It’s sweet even when empty of sugar. I recently learned it was an item carried forward from great-grandmother to grandmother to mother. The white lace bedspread a great-grandmother made by hand, and the doll came in tow with a grandmother from Germany long before women could vote. Pastel portraits were drawn of my mother and grandmother when they were both young women and lastly, the wool is from my mother's collection inspired by my recently deceased aunt's passion for rug hooking.
The boxed goods appear like oddities belonging to a thrift store, and perhaps one day, they will sit on the shelves of a second-hand shop. But for now, they will sit in my home as exquisite enigmas.
How do we determine what we want to keep with us? What constitutes preciousness?
Perhaps I want these items because I felt estranged as a child, and it's the resonance of recognition, something familiar. The word familiar in late 14c. meant "of or pertaining to one's family." Interestingly, the word familia in Latin was used not to describe parents and children but rather the people who belonged to a household, including slaves and servants. The word used for parents and children was synonymous with house, domus, with an earlier PIE root, domo, a feminine word. Regardless, the familiar roots back to the home.
It is worth noting these collected items are women's items, objects, and materials made by women, of women, and for women. The women in my family determined these items were valuable, and each time a home was cleared, somehow, someone chose to keep these items from the debris. This is me now.
I may argue that the items have an aesthetic quality that called me to them, but I believe it’s actually a token of power imbued in the object by the people or person who loved it. How else can you explain loving an unassuming broken sugar bowl?
Have you ever seen a Boli before? They are sacred objects created by the Bamana people from Mali, Africa, to hold spiritual power for the collective benefit. They are objects made of many natural and sacrificial materials crushed down into a paste and applied over a small wood and cloth armature. Boli are believed to hold so much power that wars between Bamana people have erupted to steal and destroy one another's Boli.
When I think of the Boli's power, I see that the preciousness is the purpose, the belief, the devotion, and the love given to the object by its creator and audience.
In my team building workshops this summer, we asked our team the question, "Would you choose to go back in time to meet your ancestors or go into the future to meet your future ancestors?" One of my colleagues said she would go back in time to tell her ancestors how well she was doing. Hearing this my eyes welled recognizing her life being the gift of her heritage.
As I unpack these precious items and consider the lives of my ancestors who made these things, held these things, loved these things, I recognize myself as being created and loved by these women. They would believe myself and my life to be precious.
This is an empowering belief worth holding on to.