Materialism

by Lee

The things I value:

• shoes that let my toes wiggle

• sunglasses that don’t snag my hair

• a sturdy belt

• a snug backpack

• a fin tip pen

• empty pages

• a silly book: exposing my humanity

• a grocery bag

• a stiff toothbrush

• a stained mug

• a worn hat

• two clean sheets

• two pillows: one thick and one thin

I have much more than this list. Motorcycles, an airplane, bikes, boards, big person-lifting kites, trucks, a van, little places to lay my head. Too many notebooks, and books I may never read. Clothes in different zip codes. Construction tools, too many. Computers and watches and niche technologies. Bins of useless bobs and bits. Camping equipment. All of it, I hold onto. As possibility.

Even with all these opportunities, I crave a different life every year, fantasize of something new and different; sometimes the opposite. I have to remind myself that this is freedom, and the responsibility is to find harmony in the noise of excess.

I’m not immaterial, I’m a collector—of experience. And all my little items in this universe are a portal to activity, to enjoyment, to connection. We are all attached to each other, tethered on the tumble, though cyclical, through an infinite reality. An immense and impossible adventure. But we have each other. And all my little items are the handshakes to that adventure, a smile through an item that says: we can be friends.

It’s ok to have things. Make them mean something.