9 Sampagitas: My tesoro is your bizarro....

I went to a estate sale for the first time yesterday. The house, by any standard, is huge, and has a lot of character. It also contains a hodge-podge of everything from Southeast Asian artwork, American landscapes, French provincial and contemporary furniture, Victorian and contemporary lamps, batik fabrics, Chinese soup bowls, and Moroccan lamp tables, Brass floor candle holders, an Amish bench, a church pew, a European street scene on canvas, a wooden camel, worn out carpets and tired oils on canvas, among other things. An Asian looking man in his early fifties smiled at us when we got there. After viewing the predominance of Southeast Asia inside the house, we concluded that he must be the son of the departed owners of the mansion.

As I fingered a folded batik on a table, an Indian or Pakistani garden print on the wall caught my eye. There was a beautiful carved wooden table somewhere. As I examined the patterns on the fabric, my thoughts went to the faceless lady of the house who probably hosted teas with savory stories and sweets in this parlor. Did she laugh with her friends while retelling the precise time and place when she bought the artwork in a bazaar in some exotic and peaceful town in Pakistan? Did she bat her eyelashes and cast a glance with her kohl eyes at the uptight rug dealer to get the best deal or did her husband surprise her with it? Was her marriage arranged - I am sure it was. He must be very successful, the house spoke for itself. Did her husband buy those saris? Which sari was she wearing at her last party, was it the marigold one on the hanger and is the red with gold frill the sari she wore at her wedding?

In the living room was a huge Indian Swing, with hand painted columns and romanticized carved birds at their feet. The seat is a ‘love seat’ made of wood, probably painted teak. It is “in your face” and I did not feel passionate about owning such gaudiness at a cost of $2,000. This was the reason why we came but I came away with an unexplained disinterest towards it.

A great number of people came to pick over the things that were once held dear by its owners, room after room. I bought four soup bowls, the garden scene print and the day before, my HB who stopped there on the way to buy bottled water, brought home a mobile to add to my collection of Balinese flying mermaids. We paid less than $30 for our part of the faceless lady and gentleman’s treasures. Whenever we haggled for a discount, one of the ladies who looked straight from Antique Roadshow would gently say, in a hushed voice normally reserved for church or funeral parlor, “She will not accept anything lower than…”

I started to wonder if they were referring to the departed; I mean who was this “she?” Were they contacting the owner from the dead via Text or IM? Departed says, “I don’t want to sell that sauce pan for anything less than $5. That's my favorite curry sauce pan, do you know how many pounds of coriander and cumin I stirred in it?” “He wants to pay only $25 for that chair? That was an antique made-to-order in Karachi (or Bombay). Nothing less than $55!” Anyway, most of the things in there were in my opinion, junk. I surmised that their heirs already took the creme de la creme of what was left, and rightly so. What we were seeing are just the left overs soon to be hauled by dump trucks or Goodwill.

We went through the house, up and down and all over again, discussing what we are willing to pay for the swing should no one buy it, deciding further that we were operating under the proposition that we do not need it. Furthermore, I categorically do not like it two thousand dollars. I then started to run a mental note of the things we have accumulated through the years. In the same manner that I was speculating on the tastes and lives of the previous owners of the variety of things I just went through, it occurred to me that someday, my personal properties will be subject to the same judgment that I was passing.

When my HB and I moved into our house, I was very opinionated about interior décor, always calling upon my theater experience and throwing it near, not “at” his face. His collection was part of a previous division of property from a dissolved marriage, whereas mine was fueled by being single and uncompromising with what I liked. His collection or taste in that matter was clearly the “ying” to my “hugely yang.” Winter to my summer. Salt to my Saffron.

Between us, he was more accommodating of my Balinese dance masks, flying mermaids, wooden Thai folk art, sari materials, etc. I, on the other hand, was unabashedly critical of the drab, gloomy winter scenes, charcoal depictions of animals in a wintry landscape, and water color painting of a barn on a New England melancholy day. I reel like taking Prozac just looking at them.

One day, I was quietly reading a book in our deck facing the woods and a pathway to the tennis court. Directly behind me was our living room where we had hung a metal rod to hang my Balinese winged mermaids from Indonesia. One can look up from the pathway and see the ceiling of our living room. All of a sudden, I heard some voices. “Look at the bizarre stuff hanging in those people’s house!” I was taken by surprise and without making them see me, I retorted, “That’s Indonesian artwork! Get a passport and see the world so you don’t stay ignorant!”

I also remember when my son was just a toddler. I sat him down to eat lunch. He was facing away from the wall but he could see a huge mirror in the living room opposite him. I noticed that his face was just an inch away from his plate so I asked him why he had his face down. Without saying a word, he put his tiny arm behind him, tiny forefinger pointing to a mask behind him. It apparently scares him as it stared from him on the mirror. I carried him on my waist, took him to the mask and I slapped it hard while telling him, “See, it is not real, it is a mask, it is made of wood and YOU are the boss of the mask. Go slap it!” Say “I’m the boss!” We kept slapping each one of the dance masks we owned and he was comfortable after that. He kept saying, “You are not the boss of me. You are fired!” as we went around the apartment slapping each mask.

Then a year or so ago, a pizza delivery man caught a glance of the inside of my house. He got all excited, “This is like home! Your house is like home!” I invited him in and I made him breathe it all in. He’s Burmese. I pointed to our Burmese puppets and he was very delighted, smiling from ear to ear. “Thank you for showing me. Remind me of home”.

Just a week ago, my third-grade niece was visiting us with her family. After she used our powder room she proclaimed, “There were so many eyes looking at me while I peed!”

After the estate sale yesterday, HB left for an out- of- state trip. Alone in the house, I started to think of what history my stuff tells? I cleaned out my kitchen cabinets lest my estate sale buyers think I have a compulsive disorder collecting can openers, bottle openers, corkscrew – really why do we have at least 8? I organized my wooden spatulas and discarded the distended Rubbermaid rubber ones. Heck, I even threw away ten-year old bottles of paprika and cumin. Does it say something about me as a cook?

I went to the pantry and organized the tonic water bottles, pesto jars, boxes of Splenda, sugar bags as hard as the pavement of K Street Washington, DC, flat soda water, tempura mix. I have minimalized my drawers of pearls and costume jewelry by giving some to my nieces last week. But what about my college notes, my term papers- who cares about those? I decided that I would pitch them too. If a college kid leafs through them, he/she can use those term papers to get a good grade, yeah! And hopefully get expelled for plagiarizing as those were submitted once before through a website that checks for plagiarized materials. Ok, back to the matter of my artifacts.

My heirs get to donate my prized wall art to the Museum of Pensacola, Florida. I once saw its poster at the airport and it has a Garuda on it, so I am sure they have a Southeast Asian wing and it will be nice to immortalize the work of an unknown Balinese artist. It depicts a wedding procession and by destiny, I ended up buying it twenty years or so ago, not knowing it was prophetic of what was going to happen in my life.

I told my friend Richard that I became sad after going to the estate sale and wondered if my feelings were appropriate and he said it succinctly, “It is really sad to go to an estate sale because you are looking at people’s history…”

I hope someday, when my turn comes, that people would catch the happy vibe and the energy in my junk. “Look at this mermaid with a double DD bra size and she is topless! Look at the brown tabby kissing the black one – they will never know that it represents my beloved cat that passed away, giving a kiss to his brother. The black cat wears a tag, which only became known to me when I got it home, that says “Bermuda.” Since that day, I took it to mean that my departed cat is trying to make me know that I should just think how happy he is enjoying the surf, sand, and sun of Bermuda. That’s my way of putting a positive slant on everything sad or stressful when I could. I hope they will say, "Whoever was in here had a full happy life, I can almost hear her laughing." I hope this is not anytime soon. I love life so much I fear dying.

But just the other night, I heard a quote from an unnamed source: “The beauty of life is that it cannot go on forever. This makes us live it to the fullest each day even more.” Amen.