So many memories tied to such little seemingly insignificant items
Momento- noun:
A souvenir; a reminder of past events.
Momentos. When I sit back and look around my office I am surrounded by them. In fact I seem to be surrounded by them wherever I go. They are little things that trigger a memory for me of a person, place or time, often all three. I seem to have been collecting them my entire life, some without even realizing it. Some are tangible such as the Walt Disney Polynesian Village glass I got while on Senior Spring Break in Daytona Beach, and some not so tangible such as the smell of chicken and dumplings cooking that triggers my mind to slip into another space and time.
We all have them. Little things that we keep to remember a memory from the past. I have heard of people collecting coasters (I have many), some people collect ornaments to display on their tree every year, perhaps their thing is shot glasses (I too have many), it could even be something such as a rock or bottle of sand (again I have many). Whatever they are, I bet you could ask that person about each one of them and they would have a story about it. Something that would make that item worth its weight in gold to them but could be just junk to another person.
An old Buddhist teaching about objects and the emotions tied to them that I heard some while back, but still lingers with me, is that an object does not have the power to cause emotions in you, it is only in how you perceive the object. Or at least something like that. Basically take for instance, the rock sitting on my desk. While it is just a rock, when I look at it, it makes me happy. It reminds me of a fun time in the desert. But someone else looking at it, it may be just a rock. Or it could bring sadness because perhaps they lost a loved one who died in the desert from falling on a rock. The rock itself has no power, only the memories tied to it have the power. And only we can control those emotions. I guess maybe it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (could be the why I described it as I am not Dalai), but Buddhist sayings rarely do to me yet they somehow stick in my head like crazy fortune cookies sayings. But I digress.
In my office I have shelves with significant objects on them. A Blue Angels toy plane, a shark-shaped pen, a Lassen sea turtle trinket box, a piece of fool’s gold, old cameras, and many more. And with each of them comes a story. Just on the momentos alone in my office I could tell stories for hours.
This is not even mentioning the ones I have in boxes still that sometimes I think I will get rid of some day but find hours getting lost reminiscing as I dig through them only to close the box and go back to the present leaving them packed away to revisit at another time.
I started to really take note of momentos on a long road trip to South Florida, and what exactly a momento is. I realized that many momentos just happen and that we may not even realize that we have them. I looked around in the van and saw so many objects that reminded me of friends. (I do not want to leave anyone out so I will not name names, but many will know who they are :) There was a “binky blanket” that gave us embroidered with Nora’s initials, even the song playing on the radio reminded me of someone. The backpack I got for Christmas from another friend sat on the seat next to me, the set of “G” wings off a bomber jacket that I have carried in every vehicle I have owned, the ad for a McRib on the billboard is a reminder. I would see different cars that reminded me of friends. Cities and destinations that also conjured up forgotten links to friends.
Sometimes the memories come unsolicited, and harken back to darker days. But every memory is what makes me who I am today. And I happen to like who I am so they are all just fine.
After thinking hard about it all, I guess that is why I love my One Shoe Diaries Project. The shoes take on a momento quality for me. If I go through my collection of Lost Sole images I can tell you where I was and what was going on in my life right at that moment when I discovered that abandoned shoe. The shoes transform into a photographic memoir of my life at the time.
Hence why I think I just keep “collecting” them and probably will never stop. I don’t think I’ll ever stop collecting many different momentos, whether I know it or not. It seems that as a story teller it just happens.
So I am assuming many of you while reading this story looked around your space to take note of any momentos around you. And I bet many of you found more than you thought you had. I think it would be a cool photographic project to photograph people’s favorite momentos. I bet it would be pretty interesting to say the least.