In My Eyes, Pt. 2

One thing I’ve noticed during a good many years spent traveling this spinning chunk of carbon is that the human race is scornfully wasteful, most notably Americans.
I, even though prone to piggishness from time to time, have always found it difficult parting with an inanimate object in which I can foresee a future use, or a past that’s been shared. I mean, why waste the time and energy -much less the money- to find and procure a replacement when you already possess it? I’ve obviously engendered some offbeat personality trait from my mother who, for instance, saved every single rubber band she ever came across! And let me say in the here and now that we, as a family, nor anyone else within shouting distance who needed one, were ever without a rubber band, darn near any size, any color. Something to be said for that. My mother’s sense of practicality and frugality evidently rubbed off on me in some odd way, maybe not for the reasons she chose as she was a product of the Depression, but just as important as her thriftiness was my own burgeoning ecological sensibilities.
The earliest signs that I’d inherited something from mom’s gene pool became evident when I was just a tyke on field trips with my kindergarten class where we were required to bring a brown bag lunch from home. Midway through the day, having explored a fire station, or Holsum bakery, or Noah’s potato chip factory, and having eaten the lunch that was packed with loving care by my mother, I couldn’t find it within myself to throw the bag away, not wanting it to be lost so far away from home, knowing it would be happy and safe and secure and infinitely more loved with me. I mean, a tree gave it’s life for this bag so it deserved a Viking funeral at the least!
I’d bring back the bag to my mom whereupon she would dutifully fold it and put it on top of the bulging stack in the pantry. The irrational love I extended to those brown paper sacks would eventually pay off in a day when they would be needed again, giving them additional life and purpose, and that thought thrilled me to no end. I had that kind of respect, peculiar as it is, even as a kid. This idea might be viewed as silly by most, I know, but I still feel this way about brown paper bags. That much hasn’t changed, nor will it.
These days, if I get a tear in some clothing? I have it darned. If a sheet rips? I get it repaired. I have a personal relationship with these items because we’ve shared this life; a veritable collage of sentimental memories when you get right down to it and I have no problem admitting that inexplicably I’m emotionally attached. I mean, look at the lifeline of a product’s origins; humble beginnings as a raw material produced by nature -a miracle in itself- and then take into consideration the myriad of lives who were involved not only in harvesting and making the item, but in finding its way to you, too. The entire process from start to finish is rather staggering. Makes you appreciate the relationship even more. So why would I want to casually toss these articles in the trash, reduce their meaning? I give them as many lives as a cat ‘cause the stitches they carry are essentially badges of honor and they and I wear each other proudly.
And in its own way, Planet Earth will thank you. Harmony is communicable.
I sleep real good at night. My head buried in my stitched pillowcase. The one that shelters and supports all my dreams, endures snores of wicked dimension.