Life Long Objects

Sing a new song
Greet the bright yellow rays of sunshine
Floating through your window pane
It’s a pretty little world
–My vintage Hello Kitty cup I’ve had since I was 3

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When I was a little girl growing up in Gering, Nebraska I lived with my grandparents. My mom, my brother and I all lived with my moms parents. We were there for 5 years. But my dad’s had also grown up in Nebraska and his parents were still out on the farm about 15, 20 minutes outside town. It was normal for us to go spend a weekend there, sometimes with cousins, sometimes just us. Every single morning I could count on hot cocoa on the stove and cocoa pebbles as a legitimate cereal choice. Heaven.

Neither of my grandparents weren’t the “play with the grandkids” type. (Was that even a thing?) We were expected to entertain ourselves. And so in both cases I was pretty comfortable doing my own thing and making my own fun, and/or hanging with my brother and (2 boy) cousins. Boredom was also an option. My Grandma Sue and Grandpa Fred were the ones who lived on the farm, in a big old farmhouse (at least in my kid memory it was big), where there was a large fenced in yard, a ride-on toy John Deere tractor, and a whole bunch of farm dogs. There weren’t a lot of toys, but there were some. And there were also the little trinkets and treasures around the house.

Among the treasures at my grandparent’s farm house was the little cabinet in which my grandma kept her bell collection. I loved to look at those bells, and sometimes she let me open the cabinet and play with them. There was one bell in particular that always drew my attention. It was small and brass, with little engravings on it. But what really drew my attention was the jagged bottom of the bell. Unlike most bells that have a flat bottom, so that when placed on a solid surface, the entire rim of the bell sits flush with the surface, this bell had these little jagged edges all the way around. It was my favorite.

To this day I could not tell you what any of the other bells looked like, but I’ve never forgotten that jagged bell. I also remember accidentally dropping that bell on my face as a child, presumable as I held it up to look from underneath and as you’d expect, those jagged little edges pressed a lifelong memory into my brain as they hit my curious, little face.

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I keep my Hello Kitty cup on a tray in my studio. It’s a cream enamel cup with chips all around the top. A lot of the wording, as well as the outline of Hello Kitty herself, were originally in red, but it’s faded so much now to a barely there peachy color.

It was not the sort of treasured item I watched carefully all of my years growing up and always knew exactly where it was. It was not like my post-college roommates blankie that she still kept under her pillow and never parted with. Somehow it just always seemed to turn up. In my mind it was probably in the top junk drawer of my dresser in high school… but I don’t really know. I’m guessing it stayed there for a while as I don’t think I took it to college with me (but maybe I did?)  And I’m not sure where I kept it when we lived in Nebraska when I was little or how it moved with us to the ranch and then to Colorado.  How did it come into my possession again as an adult? I don’t remember.

But I also know that several times throughout my life I have moments of rediscovery with my little cream cup. I have little insignificant memories of finding my cup and being excited to see it again–Oh it’s my little Hello Kitty Cup! I love this cup! I had a lot of Hello Kitty and My Little Twin Star stuff as a kid–a Kiki piggy bank (wow that’s worth a lot!), this comb, this coin purse (except mine had a little heart and star charm instead of a bell), this toothbrush, and this mini gumball machine was a favorite… I mean I loved all things Hello Kitty/My Twin Stars/Sanrio and perhaps the cup was the first of my collection and the beginning of this childhood attachment. Not sure. But what I’m saying is that Hello Kitty and this cup was a constant in my childhood. I don’t have a lot of photographs of me as a kid (as opposed to say my husband who–no joke–has 9, yes NINE, 3.5 inch binders of childhood scrapbooks), but I have a Hello Kitty cup.

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I wasn’t super close to my Grandma Sue and my Grandpa Fred–the ones who lived on a farm–we just didn’t spend as much time with them as we did my other grandparents, but they were always good, kind people. They retired and moved to Oregon when I was still pretty young. My favorite childhood vacation might be the trip we took to Oregon when I was 12 to visit them. I fell in love with Oregon that trip and still remember so many details of that vacation.

I hadn’t been to Oregon again until just a few years ago for a family reunion on my husbands side of the family. My grandma Sue had passed away by then, but my Grandpa Fred still lives there, as does my Aunt Janet, so we made plans to get together with them. This was the first time my girls were meeting them and I’ll never forget my Grandpa Fred picking up Lamp and she giving him the biggest hug like she’d known him all her life. He lives in a beautiful retirement community and had a card table out with little stuffed animals on it–he told the girls they could each pick out one stuffed animal.

He also pointed toward some bell’s from Grandma’s collection and told me to pick out a bell if I wanted one as well. I feel like he told me he was offering bells to all the grandkids who came to visit–at least that’s the story I’m remembering because as I immediately scanned the table of bells and saw my jagged edge little brass bell I remember thinking, “I can’t believe no one else has chosen this bell!” I picked that one out immediately that thanked Grandpa Fred. I hadn’t seen or touched this bell since I was a very young child. It now sits on my desk next to my Hello Kitty cup.

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It’s just stuff. And I have things I consider to be of greater value both monetarily and sentimentally. But there’s no denying that I’ve assigned quite a bit of meaning to these little objects. For me, and I’m curious if anyone else feels this way, it’s like this tangible piece of history, reaching back through time and space giving a witness to your life. I had only faint memories of the bell and the cabinet–and the memories on their own aren’t that particularly meaningful–but this bell sitting on my desk as a little witness. “Yes you were there. You were that little girl in the big farmhouse living a life–the same life you’re still in the course of living–playing with the bells and I (the bell is speaking now obviously) was there too.

And then there’s the constancy of something–a little object like a cup–that has come and gone from my notice, but somehow has always managed to stay in my possession that just feels comforting. I had that cup when I was 3 and lived in Utah. Somehow it was there for all my growing up years.

I was a little kid with a perm and Izod shirts and I had that cup.
I was also a high school cheerleader who rocked out to Led Zeppelin and I had that cup.
I had my heart broken in college (more than once) and I had that cup.
I got married and moved to New York City and I had that cup.
I now live in Ohio with my handsome husband, three daughters and one dog and I still have this cup.

I have journals, I have photographs, and I have memories.
But for some weird reason I’m also really glad I have this bell and this cup.

(To whom it may concern: please bury me with the bell and the cup.)

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I’d love to hear about your lifelong objects. What has been with you since you were a young child? Does it have particular meaning on it’s own, or is it more about the meaning assigned to it for simply being there all these years? What about heirlooms that have been passed down? For example, I am very honored to have my grandmother’s wedding band–something she personally gave to me–and I treasure it, but it still feels different than these objects I have a more direct personal connection to. I’d love to hear your thoughts.