“My Bronze Bells”
I have been a minimalist in varying degrees since childhood. I still, however, hold on to a few items. The image some of these items create for me is not a pleasant one, and I question the need/desire to hold on to them. My childhood was far from a happy one and, in fact, I do not have very many memories, which could be considered very good or very bad. I have two older brothers and my parents owned a soda manufacturing business. When I was born, their first girl and last baby, they gave me away to a couple they knew very little about (the male was their extract salesman). I really can’t say the exact age I was when this transaction took place, but I ended up staying with this couple in another state not too far away, until I was 10 years old. From as far back as I can remember, this was against my wishes. After many crying spells and stiff upper lips, my parents finally agreed to let me come back home. Helen, the female part of this couple, gave me a set of six bronze bells when I left, along with the thought that I was killing De, the male in this scenario, by leaving. She told me that when I first came to live with them, I was a baby and they had no toys and nothing to entertain me. She had fashioned the bells into a crib mobile of sorts by binding them together with green yarn and hanging them across the area in which they kept me. I have kept these bells for over 40 years, a fact that completely flies in the face of my minimalism philosophy, yet I have never been able to let them go. Thank you for the inspiration. I have taken a picture of my ready to purge bells, and continue to keep a stiff upper lip.
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