I.
The glass Elijah's cup came from Hungary with my great-great grandfather. It's cheap glass, valuless to an outsider.
But it's old and think of what it has seen! The Old Country, the new country, traveling across the sea and into the credenza in my dining room.
We bring it out once a year for Passover and fill it with wine for the prophet if he wants to stop by.
II.
I have a shirt that always smells musty.
No matter how many times I wash it, it's just been sitting in a drawer in my room for a little too long.
Just another thing, another object to grasp through the days of my life.
III.
I have, somewhere, a small ceramic mask given to me by my late grandmother. On the back it says "New Orleans '77".
It was tied to top the of birthday gift when I was about eight or ten, a little party favor.
I've held on to it ever since.
IV.
Somewhere in the back of my closet is a pink knit baby blanket with my full name sewn into it in Hebrew and English.
I don't know who made it or where it came from, nor do I have any memory of it every being on my bed.
V.
When I was a kid I thought neckties were reall cool. My mom took an old brown tie of my dads and sewed velcro to it, and I would take a lunchbox and hold it like abreifcase.
As an inecntive when I moved from a crib to a "big-girl bed", she sewed me a starfish out of ties. He was called Necktie Starfish, and I still have him somewhere.
VI.
In the cloests and cabinent and credenzas of our lives, there hide the many obejcts that mark and color lives. They stay with us even if we don't phyiscally have them. We have object memories, and holding them can bring us back to another time.
The glass Elijah's cup came from Hungary with my great-great grandfather. It's cheap glass, valuless to an outsider.
But it's old and think of what it has seen! The Old Country, the new country, traveling across the sea and into the credenza in my dining room.
We bring it out once a year for Passover and fill it with wine for the prophet if he wants to stop by.
II.
I have a shirt that always smells musty.
No matter how many times I wash it, it's just been sitting in a drawer in my room for a little too long.
Just another thing, another object to grasp through the days of my life.
III.
I have, somewhere, a small ceramic mask given to me by my late grandmother. On the back it says "New Orleans '77".
It was tied to top the of birthday gift when I was about eight or ten, a little party favor.
I've held on to it ever since.
IV.
Somewhere in the back of my closet is a pink knit baby blanket with my full name sewn into it in Hebrew and English.
I don't know who made it or where it came from, nor do I have any memory of it every being on my bed.
V.
When I was a kid I thought neckties were reall cool. My mom took an old brown tie of my dads and sewed velcro to it, and I would take a lunchbox and hold it like abreifcase.
As an inecntive when I moved from a crib to a "big-girl bed", she sewed me a starfish out of ties. He was called Necktie Starfish, and I still have him somewhere.
VI.
In the cloests and cabinent and credenzas of our lives, there hide the many obejcts that mark and color lives. They stay with us even if we don't phyiscally have them. We have object memories, and holding them can bring us back to another time.
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