Discoveries of Unrequited Love and the Material Culture We Leave Behind

One June afternoon I found myself in the basement of a thrift store. I was looking through walls and walls of tchotchkes, looking for something cool, or interesting, or maybe even valuable. Wall art was kept on the floor, and the section was full of generic images of dancing salt and pepper shakers, and cliché quotes about a happy life…or whatever. But there was something there, a beautiful watercolor painting. And it was simple, a little house, on the side of a road, covered in bushes of blushed flowers and framed by green fronded palm trees. There was the slight hue of sunset faded in the background, all tangerine and yellow. It was pretty, so idyllic, heralding the simple paradise of summer. I picked it up and flipped it over to check out the hanging apparatus. My mouth fell open. There was a love note scrawled out on the back;

*Joe:

No es importante

la distancia si

el corazon dice

te quiero

Nunca te

voy a olvidar

Hasta siempre

Lorena

19.2.89

*Joe, the distance is not important if the heart says I love you. I am never going to forget you. Until forever, Lorena 2/19/1989

For the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop smiling. This little two-sentence note was like something from a movie. Unrequited, true love, in the basement of a thrift store. Something personal, heartbreaking, love that would lay flat against a wall hidden from everybody, except Joe. Joe would see that picture hanging, and he would know.

I tried to imagine how this picture came to find me, how could someone let such a priceless treasure end up in the hands of a stranger. I researched everything I could think of, the anthropology of unrequited love, the anthropology of writing love notes, the anthropology of writing on the back of frames, the anthropology of throwing things away, the anthropology of the heart speaking.

A month later I came across an article in the New York Times, “ Aging Parents With Lots of Stuff and Children Who Don’t Want It”. The article discusses the material culture of baby boomers, and how they have accumulated a lifetime of things, which the article describes as “a cornerstone of the American dream”. The boomers have cupboards overflowing with china, crystal, chintz, things which were once symbols of status and prosperity, but perhaps have little luster in the eyes of their descendants. The article continues to explain how their beloved things were built to last, made to be cherished, and passed down from generation to generation. What happens when later generations aren’t interested in keeping these treasures?

Today we accumulate our material worlds by purchasing things new. No longer are objects beloved and dependable, today we know our coffee makers will break down, or we’re sold a newer model before it has time to. Our material worlds are largely temporary, disposable, undependable.

But what about art? Is art not forever? Why was this watercolor discarded?

Maybe Lorena had been a mistress. Or perhaps Joe himself had grown so tired, so heartbroken from this constant reminder of his own unrequited love, that he took it upon himself to get rid of it. Maybe Joe simply died one morning, and in the nearly 30 years of this watercolor having hung on the wall, no one had ever thought to turn it over, why would they? Maybe no one ever knew that this love note existed, and it was donated because it was deemed unremarkable. It is impossible to take on the entire material culture of another person’s entire life. But what if Joe himself had never turned the frame over either! What if he hung it hastily, in the home he would spend the last 30 years of his life in, eager to lay his eyes on it every morning, a gift from his beloved Lorena. Appreciating it without really knowing its true value.

As an Anthropologist, I am interested in the stories of individuals. I love the mundane of everyday lives, the small rituals we perform, the trinkets we collect, which have no value but still are invaluable. In Anthropology social context is important, and we typically discuss societies and people. However, a ceramic pot might have general implications for how it was utilized in society, but what about the individual story? Who created it? Who used it? How frustrating is it that so many artifacts go without a personal context?

How might our material cultural worlds lead us to be misunderstood by others? The context I imagine for the watercolor painting might be wildly misguided. It is frustrating to imagine collecting a lifetime of things, only to be completely misunderstood by them. Or even to be completely disassociated from them, as was the fate of the owner of the painting.

Our material lives are museums about us and the lives we live. But they are temporary and ephemeral. Just like us.