The History of My History

In today's world of minimalism and de-cluttering, the experts tell us our society is contributing to its own misery by having too many possessions.  Collecting tchotchkes, particularly ones that have no value or purpose, is considered tacky.  If one is going to collect something, it should be items that have some use, or are expected to have some monetary appreciation.  

For example, my husband collects hand-carved duck decoys, a collection whose current value could probably be a down payment on a home.  He has an assortment of musical instruments, which as a musician, he plays and doesn't merely put on display.   Some people collect comic books or baseball cards.  Not only can these be put away to be sold at some future date when they become scarce, one can read the comic books, thus deriving some use from them.  

Does anyone out there still collect items of questionable value as a hobby, for the mere pleasure of having them?

The paragraph above is meant as an introduction to my own useless hobby.  I am aware it has no monetary value and serves no purpose.  I know it takes up space in my home that could be put to better use.  

I collect cats.

Don't worry.  I don't mean I am an animal hoarder.  I mean I collect statues of cats.  It doesn't matter what kind of statue.  I have a collection of all manner of cat statues and have done so since I was a child.

I was about six years old and obsessed with felines (my own and anyone else's) when my family suggested I might enjoy starting a cat collection.  This was the 70s.  Kitsch wasn't kitsch back then.  People collected stuff for the sake of collecting and often amassed large, useless compilations of dust collectors. I saw how attached adults could be to their collections.  I didn't understand the concept of nostalgia then.  I merely understood the idea of taking pleasure from making a hobby out of acquiring stuff.  I was on board with the idea of a cat collection.  My mother provided me with a cabinet to store them and I began to display whatever cat statues I currently had.  I was off and running.

The summer between first and second grade was when I acquired the bulk of my collection.  That summer I traveled with my grandparents and one of my great aunts to visit another one of my great aunts who lived in Tennessee.  "Tantie", as we called her, was widowed earlier that year and was getting ready to move back to New York to be closer to her family.  We made the trip in the car over the course of two or three days.  I suppose partly as compensation for having to make a vacation out of spending two weeks with old people, my grandmother was determined to help me add to my cat collection wherever possible.  We raided the gift shop of every Stuckey's we ate a meal in while on the road.  Once we arrived at our destination, we spent our days visiting Tantie's friends.  When they heard about my cat collection, they were eager to hand over whatever cat knickknacks they had cluttering up their own homes.  

I have only a handful of vague memories of the people I met during that trip, but I do remember some of the cats on the shelf came from them.  Some of them were even meant to have a practical use.

These are salt and pepper shakers.

This one had an obvious purpose.

We also browsed local gift shops during the visit.  I don't remember how many.  I only remember going into one shop where we bought this cat, which for years was my favorite one in the collection.  I remember the shop because there was a sign on the shelves containing the ceramic statues that said, "Lovely to look at, delightful to hold, but if you break me, consider me sold."  

I came home from that trip with around twenty new cats.

I never added to the collection with quite so much fervor as I did during that two-week trip, but I never stopped acquiring them.  Over the years new cats trickled into the cabinet either as gifts, or I bought them for myself when they caught my eye.  Some of the gifts were from people who had no idea what else to give me for my birthday or Christmas.  Some of them were spontaneous gifts from friends and family who saw a cat statue somewhere and thought of me.  I have memories of many of them.

Does anyone remember when Red Rose teabags came with little ceramic animals?  I had to keep the cat one.

Here is a fun one that was a birthday present from my college roommate.

Here is one I bought myself at the Nyack Street Fair.  I remember this one in particular not for the cat itself, but for the day.  It was my birthday and I made sure to have plans with my friends to go to the fair that day so I would have an excuse not to fence judge at the horse trials at my barn.

I bought this one at a souvenir shop in Lisdoonvarna, Ireland.  The shop sold many pieces of Royal Tara china.  At the time there was a rumor the company was going out of business.  I felt it would be nice to have something that would soon be rare, and would still suit my cat collection.  (The company is still in business .)

I am intrigued by some of the pieces in my collection that might have a history, but I will never know it.

For example, my grandmother used to work at the Osborn Retirement Home.  When she worked there, the business model was that it was a home for women who had substantial assets, but nobody to leave them to.  The residents would turn their assets over to the home in exchange for their care (and excellent care it was, and still is even though they are not operating on the same model).  Many of these women moved into the home holding on to their  jewelry and bric-a-brac, and they needed to to unload it.  There were artists and craftspeople among the residents as well.  The home would regularly hold a kind of flea market where the women could sell their unwanted stuff or their artwork.  My grandmother regularly bought jewelry and crafts from them, and I'm sure she bought some cats for me there from time to time.  Which residents owned those cats previously?  Where did they get their cats?  How old were the cats?

Then there was my grandfather's sister, Aunt Winifred.  Although I doubt I saw her in person more than ten times in my life, when I did see her, I was fond of her (and her little black poodle Countess).  She attended my grandparents' 50th anniversary party at my house when I was a teen.  She saw my cat collection, and after she returned home, she sent me these. 

My grandmother seemed to think they might be valuable.  They are obviously old.  There is a stamp on the bottom saying they are made in Japan.  There is another stamp on one or two of them that is illegible.  How and when did Aunt Winifred get them?  

There are cats in this cabinet that have stories I know well.  There are cats in this cabinet whose stories I will never know.  I can tell you a lot about the cats I purchased for myself and some of the ones that were gifts purchased new.  I don't know how many other stories are behind all the secondhand cats on the shelf. 

The cats are part of my history, but I don’t know all of their history. 

The saddest story of all is the fact that these cats aren't going to have much legacy.  I was going through the onerous task of removing all the cats from the shelves and dusting everything (something that I do once or twice a year at most) and a morbid thought occurred to me.  I asked Kevin, "What will happen to these cats when I die?"  Will anyone know their stories?  

I'm sure when I die I won't be survived by anyone other than my niece and nephew and their future families.  Those kids currently have no interest in my cat collection.  They barely seem aware of it.  Tantie and Aunt Winifred died years before they were born so those stories won't mean much to them. Even I barely remember all that I did on that trip to Tennessee.  Forty years from now my cat collection will be nothing more than part of a pile of Aunt Rachel's junk that needs to be disposed of.  

I don't mean for this post to be so morbid, but it makes me think about how we become attached to our possessions because of the stories they hold.  

There are people and stories attached to many of my cats.  It’s not only about cluttering up the house by “decorating” with useless knickknacks.  This is why humans become so sentimentally attached to their possessions.  We associate the things we own with people in our lives and happy times.  When the organization expert says, “You don’t need that.  It has no purpose.  Get rid of it,” she doesn’t know how that stuff made you feel or the memories associated with it.  Of course we don’t need objects to remember happy times, but it’s nice to have an extra association, a tangible reminder.

Other people’s memories never mean as much, so it’s easy to tell someone else to get rid his or her stuff.  Objects can be a tangible piece of a memory.  If we don’t share those memories, it’s hard to understand someone else’s attachment to an object.

This is something I have to confront as the years go on.  I posted recently about how I am buried under stuff and am in a constant battle to keep my place uncluttered.  Maybe one day the cats will have to go.  If I ever need to move into a nursing home, I will have to unload most of my stuff first.  One day a thrift store will be trying to figure out if it can sell a bunch of ceramic cats, or if more junk will go into a landfill.  There may even come a time before retirement when I realize the sentimental value of those cats isn’t as important as having the space they occupy put to better use.

It would be sad to think my cat collection could end up in the hands of someone who didn’t know it’s history, but maybe when some young person who thinks knickknack collecting is a fun piece of retro kitsch, that person will give it a history all her own.  

One can hope.