Antiquity

I haven’t asked many college students how they feel about antique shops. But I think I can safely assume that the number of young people who find pleasure in browsing through the belongings of dead people is relatively small. For some reason, I am part of the minority that can spend hours in places that smell like my great-great-grandma’s house. I have a great love of history in general. But it becomes even more fascinating when I can tangibly experience someone’s forgotten treasures - the items that surrounded them in their daily lives. I rummage through children’s books that were published in the thirties and forties and would have been read by those living during WWII. I look through piles of yellowed piano music and wonder how many times the songs were played and whether they were endured in silence or shared in the company of loved ones. I see some dresses that would have been beautiful and all-the-rage in the fifties, and some dresses that are so hideous that it’s a wonder the person wearing them wasn’t shot. (Maybe they were.) I peruse cases of old jewelry – some sparkling with jewels and some tarnished and long-neglected – and wonder from whence they came. I see random articles from China, Germany, and France, and imagine the long distances they traveled in various conditions to arrive to their final destinations.


But the one conclusion that I always draw from my visits to these shops of antiquity is that of human morality – of how incredibly fleeting life really is. Whenever any one of us dies, those close to us may rummage through our belongings and relive memories for a short while. But eventually everything that we own will be reused, sold, or even thrown away. All that will remain are the people you have impacted, and the legacy that they leave with their lives as a result of how you touched them. That’s why antique stores are some of my favorite places to visit. I can literally get a grasp on the past and what was once dear to people – and at the same time realize that these items are only objects. The real antiques of times past are the people you talk to everyday - those whose lives have been touched by generations of long ago in ways that even they don’t know. So instead of attempting to improve your TY Beanie Baby collection or spending your time searching for rare Russian nesting dolls, I would suggest investing more time in the people in your life. It’s definitely something I need to work on. I think I would rather people remember me for my life than for the copious amounts of faded piano music I might someday leave behind.