Mementos
I was poking around in the attic and made a discovery. I found our coffee cup collection. Thirty cups in which I can read a short story of my life. There are cups from cities, states, countries, and places we visited. There are cups from my working life. Some of them even had desiccated bodies of scorpions in them because that’s what happens when you live in the country, in Texas.
I have a mug from Liechtenstein, just to show you the esoteric nature of my travels, most of which were done in the service of selling books for Gulf Publishing Company. I also have a mug from Frankfurt where we attended the annual book fair, and London, as well. I have ten Texas Monthly Horned Frog Mugs because we bought the magazine’s press and licensed their logo for ten years.
I have no idea what to do with these mugs. They mean something to me, but that’s it. Of course, that’s the curse of all the stuff my wife and I collected over the years. I have a house full of memorabilia celebrating marriage, ancestors, and family. All the things have little stories attached, some remembered, some not. And when I’m dead and gone all those connections will turn to dust and the objects will become simply things waiting to be tossed in the trash or gone off to become part of someone else’s story.