We brought Molly home from college, and like bread crumbs marking a trail, the signs of her arrival are scattered in plain sight around the house: her guitar sprawled across the living room couch, suitcases lining the foyer, and clothes from the four seasons scattered in piles in her room. However, the most obvious sign of her move back home is the mattress and box spring from her apartment, leaned up against the garage wall, next to the golf clubs.
Bill has been itching to take the mattress and box spring upstairs and replace Molly’s current set. One of his favorite days of the year is Plainsboro Dump Day, that quarterly event where you run into friends and neighbors merrily ridding their basements, attics, and garages of the clutter that weighs down their lives. Molly’s old mattress and box spring were at the top of his list for Dump Day festivities, so imagine Bill’s face when Molly announced that she had no intention of switching them out.
“Dad, why would I get rid of my childhood bed when it still works perfectly well? Besides, it IS my childhood bed.”
Ah, a girl of my own heart. Molly, so like me in so many ways, absolutely aligned with me on this: 1.) why get rid of something that still works just fine and 2.) why throw away the memories and nostalgia?
We live in a world where much of what we buy is disposable, interchangeable, or doomed for obsolescence. My mom saved my brother’s crib for years, her frugal and nostalgic nature wishing to save it for her grandchildren. But of course, crib slats can be dangerous, even deadly, and mattresses can suffocate, so safety standards evolve constantly, and hardly anybody today will tolerate a hand-me-down crib, as well it should be.
We recently returned from a destination wedding in Virginia, the state where eight U.S. presidents were born, and history buff that I am, I took advantage of some down time to visit Ash Lawn-Highlands, the home of the fifth president, James Monroe.
I actually had intended to see Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson and definitely on my bucket list, but I ran out of time to do it justice, so decided to tackle the smaller, lower-key destination.
Monroe was one of the few presidents of that time to pass away with money still left in his accounts, so many of his belongings and furnishings are originals. How cool to see the intricately carved wood bed where he slept, the crib where his children all lay, the trundle bed to which they graduated. I love imagining him sitting at his desk, perhaps tiny molecules of DNA still clinging to some piece, and his kindly spirit watching over the visitors who pass through the place that he loved.
I also thought of energy and spirit when I visited the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. earlier this year, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached. I felt a shiver of excitement, almost an acknowledgement of a ghostly spirit, because I believe that positive energy stays in the wood and the walls and connects with people who are open to feeling it.
With all the kids home for the summer, and our house a hive of jolliness, of quick comings and goings and spirited conversations, I wonder if the people who will move into our house some day will feel the happiness that we enjoyed as a family over what will be almost 20 years when we eventually leave. Yes, houses are inanimate things, but if you allow yourself to believe, you would think they store up the good vibrations and share them with future occupants. I suppose the reverse would be true, that bad energy can also carry forward, but I’d rather focus only on the good.
You can find pictures on the Internet of the garage where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple, but wouldn’t it be cool if they turned it into a tech museum of some kind, or — since it is in a residential neighborhood and therefore impossible — took pieces of the walls and made them part of a tech history museum?
What about the desk in his Harvard dorm where Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, or the bed where Bill Gates lay and daydreamed his vision of a new concept called Windows?
Most of these items probably have already been relegated to the scrap heap of history, and what is more important is that the inventions and vision of these Founding Fathers of tech live on.
James Monroe’s vision lives on as well. His negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase, the Monroe Doctrine, and his leadership role in the Missouri Compromise are among the many events that sealed his place in history not only as a Founding Father, but also as a thought leader during America’s formative years. It is also fascinating and wonderful that the home where he lived, worked, wrote, and relaxed — and the bed where he slept and dreamed — still stands for generations to see and remember.
Molly’s childhood bed is unlikely to be a part of a larger history or be found in a museum some day, but for now, it is an important part of our family history and her own. And so for that reason, it will be preserved — somewhere in the basement I suppose, leaned up against some other wall — and thus, much to her father’s chagrin, will not be heading to the town dump this weekend.
