Even Better Than A Ceramic Raccoon...or Two

I wrote this because I saw a link on Lei's blog for Scribbit's Write Away contest. I missed the deadline, and am not one to enter for the actual competition or award, but loved the theme.

Personal space is hard to find when you share a room with two sisters. Ours was limited to our beds and the knick knack shelves that gracefully adorned our wallpapered walls. I don't remember when my mom bought these, but all six of us kids had one.

My sister, Jennifer, was and is a master collector. She has that most unique of gifts, to collect AND be organized - an ideal combination. As a young girl, she had a killer eraser collection that included everything from the crowd pleasing strawberry or watermelon eraser (along with their sweet scents) to my all-time favorite...the miniature ghetto blaster where the eraser came out the side of one of the speakers. As a proper collector, she knew, of course, that these erasers were not to be used to actually erase anything, a philosophy that is still hard for me to grasp. I am a consumer. Even if it's pretty or rare, I am still apt to use it.

Jen's skills at collecting was not limited to erasers. She also had a box full of fancy pencils with dangling charms off of one end, a proud display of penguin posters and figurines, and an awful lot of stuff having to do with Donald Duck. With her themed displays, her aesthetically pleasing knick knack shelves were hard to beat.

My own knick knack shelf was a sad affair. On the top shelf was my battered Rose Red doll that was the last gift I ever received from my grandparents. As a five-year old girl, I didn't understand that I would someday look at that doll as a reminder of loving grandparents who died a few days before that Christmas present would be opened, and that, perhaps, it would be better if I didn't take off and put on on the doll's little red velvet jacket and tiny white shoes or that I shouldn't attempt to brush her hair. Jennifer, wise at six and a half, kept her own doll pristine and I can still see its lovely yellow and white dress, matching hat with long cascading ribbons falling from it.

On another shelf was a small figurine of a raccoon sitting beside a fence. I don't remember how it come into my possession, but I do remember naively deciding that I was going to be a collector of raccoons. I let all concerned know that my favorite animal was now a raccoon and prepared to receive the many gifts that would certainly now arrive in some form of a raccoon (because that is what happens when you are a collector and have a favorite something, as I witnessed penguin after penguin and duck after duck be given to my sister.) Sadly, or rather fortunately, that little raccoon never got a buddy and my knick knack shelf never became the shrine to the masked animal that it was meant to be.

My inability to collect has carried on through the years. I've watched my loved ones enjoy their collections: My mother with her Belleek, my sister, Maureen, with her different book series and Disney movies, my brother and his phase of all things Van Halen (though never to the extent to exclude other, less gifted bands. He appreciated most who celebrated their art with tight leather pants, tank tops and glorified mullets), Jennifer, who has graduated from erasers and pencils to anything U2 and Willow Tree figurines, my husband's Bob Dylan music and, now, my own sons' many matchbox NASCAR cars. I've witnessed their joy that comes from attaching affection to a thing, a person or even an idea. I've known and enjoyed the ease that comes from shopping or finding the perfect gift for these people who collect. Yet, I've never loved anything enough to become exclusive to it; to seek out its twins and cousins and to protect it from the wear of the world.

I have a considerably larger area to call my own these days than those knick knack shelves afforded me years ago. Even so, I find myself with various different raccoons and Ruby Red dolls to fill up the space: a random piece of art we got for our wedding, a dining room table that could have benefited from some foresight to use a plastic tablecloth but instead is covered with scratches and permanent marker, or CDs that vary from Mormon Tabernacle Choir to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I have not improved with age in this arena.

But time has given me something of my very own to collect. Not the Balleek itself, but a picture in my mind of their display in my childhood home. Not the books themselves, but the stories I know from reading my sister's The Keeping Day series. No actual Van Halen album in my possession, but an ability to air drum the complicated introduction to Finish What You Started (it's tricky but I luckily had years learning from an expert).

Turns out, everyone is a collector of their own experiences, and happily, my personal collection is full of dust-free treasures.