fallling in love with inanimate objects

Photo by Flo P on Unsplash

FALLING IN LOVE WITH INANIMATE OBJECTS

 Is it about the future? Something to look forward to? Your hand reaching out from tonight into tomorrow when it will hold the ring, the pin, the piece of painted cloth you fell in love with? Is it a contract with the universe? That you will live to enjoy what you treasure? That your survival is set in stone, so to speak? Or flax, or silver?   Or is it about gathering more and more objects to look at? To appreciate? To love? Last night at three in the morning you went through another auction catalogue, staring at old jewelry as if strolling through a museum. Would it be as thrilling if you were finding these things in the sand? Four old teddy bears, each falling apart differently, and you wondered briefly about buying one as an example of how love can wear you out. Someone had put three dollars on the bear missing its left eye. There were two pairs of carved wooden angel wings, but you’ve had a more beautiful pair for sixty years. You bought them on McDougal Street, asking where the angel was. You were maybe twenty. The shopkeeper said if the angel was still attached the wings would cost more. But what happened to the angel? Are only the wings of value? Like ivory ?  Or do  angels divest themselves of their wings in order to mix safely among human kind? We can be a treacherous lot. Yesterday morning you bought six octagonal plates so brightly and nuttily painted you had to have them--you fell flat out in love.  They are from the 1920’s and the artist who painted them is referred to as a “paintress.”

     It is a compulsion, an urgency, but why? A hunger, but for what?  Does it matter? You are eighty-two years old. Have at it. That small rabbit carved from limestone is coming up soon and you’re still the highest bidder.