Hoarding versus Collecting

With Esperando out of town I have been watching more TV at night than I do when he is here. I don’t usually watch the Oprah Winfrey Show (which by the way is shown in the evening here, not daytime as in the US). Last night I happened upon her show about hoarders, people who can’t stop buying and collecting stuff until it piles up all around them and they have no room to live in their homes because all their floors and furniture are covered with all these things they’ve bought. I had to go look on the internet and see what they said about this and I found a website, Metropolitan Organizing LLC, that nailed it on the head with these comments:

“Collectors value and categorize their belongings, often showcasing them in display cases or archives. Hoarders often lump things together without the benefit of system or sequence.

Collectors often carry great pride in their treasures, and delight in exhibiting them to any interested party. Hoarders are often embarrassed and hide their belongings (home, car, etc.) from co-workers, neighbors and even repairmen.

Collectors house their collectibles in specific environments, and often find joy or contentment in the company of their treasure. Hoarders harbor little rhyme or reason within the muddle of their mess. Exquisite jewels might be kept with worn socks, rare books in a dirty dog kennel, or cherished photographs among old and slowly decaying magazines.”

That makes me an inverterate collector then, and still with the inordinate desire to keep buying things regardless of need. My blood is tainted. Here in Santa Rosalia I have collected several baskets full of seashells; five cats (eeeegad-really?—well 3 of them I just feed outside—they say cats are the most likely animal to be collected by hoarders); way too many clothes to fit in my drawers for the tiny space we live in; lots of textiles purchased in Loreto and Guadalajara; and the pantry full of food so we will never be caught short. I have lots of little pots of plants just hanging out waiting to be planted somewhere including four olives and a lemon tree. We have pots and pots of cactus starts that all look quite happy—but where are we going to put them all? How did I get this way? When I finally say to myself, stop this you do not need more blank, I stop buying blank, but then I find some other new thing to take the place of blank, and there I go again. After watching the TV show, this hoarding concept now nags at me. Hermana once pointed out to my niece that my home was like a store or a museum and its true, we’ve been so many places and I can’t stop wanting and buying the artesania from everywhere we go.

Esperando got home last night from being in California for a week. We are returning to Loreto today so that he can go diving tomorrow—and I will just have to do a little shopping. Gosh darn! all this introspection, but its time to aprovechar (take advantage of the situation) as we say down here.

Collecting Thoughts

I am jealous, here I sit in hail jail (what Denver has been having a lot of lately) waiting for my arm finish cooking while Esperando is down in Santa Rosalia soaking up the rays at our favorite beach, Santa Inez, and petting cats. Today for lack of anything better to do, I polished up some Native American jewelry. There is something so satisfying about polishing silver and seeing it shine up. The down side is that if you are using a Fabulustre rouge cloth your hands get quite black like they used to gambling on one arm bandits (now days all the slots just print out a paper coupon you can cart over to the cashier or next machine and your hands stay nice and clean).

I admit to being inveterate collector of everything, it is really a disease probably. My brother Juan-in-a-Million seems to have inherited the same gene, but at least he is focused on silver coins, wine, and art souvenirs from their travels. Neither of my parents exhibited these tendencies, nor either any grandparents that I know of—and my sister doesn’t seem to be as seriously afflicted as my brother and I are.

I have such a broad focus that I collect in fits and starts. When I finally feel guilty enough about what I have spent collecting one kind of thing, I move along to another another. I went through a phase of collecting every Turkey Red tablecloth I could find on ebay or in antique stores, not mention antique textiles in general. I love handwoven linens and huipiles from Mexico and Guatemala; mantas from Peru; printed cottons from India; ikats from Sumba. I have funky printed table linens and towels from the 1960’s such as produced by Tammis Keefe. My house is decorated with kilim pillows and oriental rugs scattered around. I am not an expert on any of these, just an eclectic lover of texture and pattern. And then there are the closets full of china, pottery and stoneware. Even the free things like rocks and shells need space to be stored; I have a million shells in the basement along with jars of sand from around the world of all the beaches where we’ve been. People say our house looks like a museum or a store. What is wrong with me?

Once a woman said to me that she and her husband weren’t spending money on each other for Christmas because they both had everything they wanted. I thought ‘how in the world could you ever have everything you want?’ I still don’t have everything I want, but I have run out of room to store anything more.

I hope you will enjoy the photos of some the Mexican artesania I have collected.