Keeping

So I am digging through my  change pocket in my wallet hoping to find fifty cents.  Instead, I find two teeth.  This starts me thinking about the things I keep.  There are the obvious ones like quilts handed down to me from my mom's family and one from Hubby's family.  I finally found the right Mission style library cabinet to show them off last year.  A silver tea set because it was my great grandmothers.  It is packed neatly away in a bin hopefully maintaining its shiny self with the lack of oxygen.  Then there is a dozen dolls.  Two were my moms and others ones she made me when I was little.  Did you know she used to sell hand made dolls at craft shows in Dallas?  They are so lovely.

        I pay for the ice cream, chocolate fudge, breaking a twenty.  I hate to do that when all I needed is fifty cents.  Now, I have a wad of my dollar bills to contend with.  I stuff my cash in my pocket to deal with later and catch a drip of ice cream as I head back to the theater.  It's our anniversary.  Thirteen years.  There is something worth keeping.  I think of the memories kept in our albums.  I think of the memories of emotions and and contemplations stored under the bed.  Tightly wrapped canvases.  There is a nude self portrait under there.  I sleep on top of her.  Four years ago, I had just a couple of weeks to record my thirty-three year old body, my 34-Ds.  The left is bruised with three biopsy scars, swollen, angry.  I only gotten my "sisters" recorded before they were tossed in the biohazard bin and samples shipped to the Mayo Clinic for testing.  The face, tummy covered in stretch marks, and hair was done during the six weeks before my hair fell out two days before my second round of chemo.  The background is red, and i am releasing butterflies from my right hand which is really my left.  A record of me before all the surgeries.  It is worth keeping.

      I stealthily slink into the darkness of the movie theater and squint to find Hubby.  The seats are almost full now.  I wiggle through the row and slump down in my saved chair trying to lick another spot of ice cream dripping on my thumb.  Hubby smiles at me.  I feel like I am 22.  I meet this guy when I was twenty two.  Fifteen and a half years later, he is bemused because I "had to have" my chocolate even after he took me to this super healthy vegan restaurant.  Yin and yang here folks.  Yah, he's figured me out.  Worth keeping.  I am sure glad he has kept me.

      Oh, the things we all keep.   There are heirlooms, maternal hand-mades, recipes from Great Grandmother Letha, quilts Great Grandmother Ruth made in the latter part of her life, wedding photos, oil paintings from high school and ones that journal my life journey.  None of it has value to any one else.  Sometimes it is a secret the little things we keep.  Shhh, don't tell anyone I still have the mix tapes from my high school boyfriend.  Do you have a cassette player?  No?  Shucks.  I have rock collections and jars of seashells I spent hours finding in Monterey, Carmell, Half Moon Bay, Cayucos, Pismo Beach, Hawaii, and Cozumel.  There is one hiding in my jewelry box that our scuba dive guide gave me in Hawaii on my honeymoon.  I clutched that thing all the way through ascending to the surface.  It is little.  I wasn't supposed to take it.  I think our guide knew I would take it.  It doesn't matter now, that was thirteen years ago three days from now.  When I look at it...smile.  Well, I kept it.  

     I don't know what will come of the teeth in my wallet.  One is Son's first tooth.  The other is Daughter's ninth.  They lost them just weeks apart.  Son lost his the last day of school.  daughter lost hers up at my parents cabin while we were fishing at the lake.  Being displaced from home in both cases, Tooth Fairy placed them in my change pocket in my wallet.  She just might leave them there for a bit, wrapped in their love notes.  They make her smile knowing she is walking around with her children's DNA.  Oh, sometimes it is very strange the things we keep.  Or is it?