13. Things and Stuff [Act 2: Irreplaceable]

Some things gain value because they are irreplaceable. But what does it actually mean for something to be irreplaceable? Who says they are irreplaceable? Listen to today's episode to learn more!

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Transcript

Joy Bork: 0:11

Welcome to Here We Are. The podcast where we talk all about things that make us human through the lenses of story and curiosity. I'm your host, Joy Bork. This is act two of Things and Stuff. Today, we are diving into the concept of things being irreplaceable. Are things actually irreplaceable? And if so, how do they gain that title? What actually is irreplaceable? The more I've dug into this concept, the more I'm seeing a spectrum appear. So much of where people land on this spectrum depends on each individual's life experience. We all have different stories, different memories and attachments that is unique to us. In some ways, yes, everything is replaceable. And in other ways, there are some things that can't be reproduced often due to time. It's an heirloom, it plays a part in history, it's an idea, maybe it's a person we love deeply. There's just so much to this topic and I cannot wait to dive in. I'm going to kick us off with an impromptu interview that I did with my friend, Pamela, a few weeks back that ties directly into the topic of what we deem irreplaceable. Let's tune in:

Pamela Rachel: 1:34

Hi, I'm Pamela. And Joy and I are basically pen palling a stranger. We found her packet when walking home from having Ramen-San after not seeing each other for seven years. It's wild. And we are feeling connected to someone who really wrote that they feel disconnected on a packet.

Joy Bork: 1:58

It's a small Manila envelope. It says"I feel disconnected, please pick me up." So I did. Hesitantly. And on the back, it says,#livfeelsdisconnected and we opened it up. And what did we do?

Pamela Rachel: 2:13

We read her letter. She talks about nature. She's a grad student who is doing an art project and she felt disconnected. So she was telling us about her lives and asks us a series of questions. She has three beautiful photos that she took herself and just asks us what we feel about them. So Joy and I spent maybe 20 to 30 minutes just writing the stranger and felt more connected to her than I think any of my friends that I've talked to via Skype or Zoom this entire year.

Joy Bork: 2:45

Yeah. The interesting thing is, just looking at these pictures, I wouldn't call them like magnificent. But they are snapshots of normal life that are super easy to connect with. Which picture did you connect with the most?

Pamela Rachel: 3:04

There is a photo of a small creek, and she takes it from almost like standing behind a tree. So you see half of the tree in the photo, and it's just a bunch of tree branches and layered tree. So you see peeks of the sun like poking through. And it's just something that reminds me of growing up in Texas and getting lost in a forest or getting lost on a trail for hours and not knowing how you're going to find your way back home, but you're okay with it. And I immediately saw it and heard the water kind of running downstream. I could almost smell like the tree sap and just nature immediately as I saw it. And it's my favorite photo. So I told Joy I'm keeping it.

Joy Bork: 3:45

And all of that happened from a picture. Like this is a small object. We were not there, but yet we now have a sentimental connection to these pictures

Pamela Rachel: 3:55

And to Liv.

Joy Bork: 3:56

And what did you do to the back of your picture?

Pamela Rachel: 3:58

I wanted to just document this moment with Joy and I. So I wrote down where we went to dinner, I had Joy sign it, I signed it, and I kind of felt like I was in high school again. And then I just wrote the date. So I'll always have this and I know the moment I see that photo, I'll always remember it. I think I'll probably frame it and carry it with me to every house I live in.

Joy Bork: 4:18

Okay. How did this picture go from being something simple to suddenly you're going to take it with you everywhere. And it is now a prized possession.

Pamela Rachel: 4:27

Because after a year of us going through a pandemic, I told Joy that this was my first friendship outing. And that disconnect has been real, more than I realized. And so having this moment for both of us to feel connected to a stranger, but then also having someone to share this moment with, it wasn't like I found it alone and wrote to Liv by myself and felt connected. It was this like special plus up that I also had Joy here. And so I had double the connection and it was a really special moment after a really hard year. So. It means a lot to me, actually. I don't think I have felt this strong of a connection maybe even in like eight years, this is wild. Probably since college, you know?

Joy Bork: 5:12

And, you know, what's really great. It's super meta because we're documenting this moment in the letters and we're documenting this moment by signing the back of the pictures. And we're documenting this moment by making this recording.

Pamela Rachel: 5:26

I should be recording us, recording our conversation. Oh my gosh. I think I might actually do that. This is wild. This is. Is it triple, super meta? I have no clue.

Joy Bork: 5:41

I think we're up to a quad. Oh my God.

Pamela Rachel: 5:44

Super special.

Joy Bork: 5:47

That's how we do it.

Pamela Rachel: 5:48

It's how we do it.

Joy Bork: 5:50

And literally here we are.

Pamela Rachel: 5:53

Gosh, the best.

Joy Bork: 5:57

Hearing that story again, brings a fresh smile to my face. That was such an odd moment. Pam and I were walking in downtown Chicago, found an envelope, opened it up and made a connection with a human we haven't ever, and probably won't ever meet. Yet this half hour experience shifted normal paper into suddenly irreplaceable momentos. This is a prime example of how mysteriously the values of things can shift. Pam and I can't go back and recreate that moment. If we lost the pictures, neither of us know who Liv actually is. So in many ways, this experience truly is irreplaceable. I also am aware that many people feel differently when it comes to what is truly irreplaceable. I learned so much in the process of conducting these interviews that I previously had no concept of. One of those concepts is of not having attachment to things. Here's our friend Kathy to tell us more:

Kathy Cordiero: 7:03

Yeah I don't attach to things at all. I mean it's very difficult to answer about holding onto stuff. And a lot of that is actually just from my upbringing. I had a very special toy as a kid, like a lot of kids do, but my mother didn't like me to be attached to things. And so she threw it out while I was at school. I've learned to just shut that off. You know It's like Oh I can do without that. Oh I don't need that. So I I'm attached to people, I'm super attached to ideas and philosophies and mindsets. But as far as actual physical things I can't think of one thing I couldn't get rid of. It just made me laugh because again, I don't consider things irreplaceable. I've never had collections that I care about. I collect ideas and of course in the digital world so much is on multiple things. Like if the house burned down, I don't have to worry about losing all of my family pictures because I've got them backed up in two different online sources. I wouldn't cry over losing an object. I would cry over losing people. Actually, probably one of my biggest fears is losing the ability to think dementia. I would be very, very sad if I lost the parts of my brain that hold on to the elixirs I've learned or the elixirs I've um developed over life on the whole mono myth quest. I don't know if you've heard of Navaratri it's one of my favorite celebrations. In Hinduism, there's things that enrich your life and because they're in your life you take them for granted, Right? But basically you're supposed to put away things that add value to who you are. Books, musical instruments, and not touch them for a prescribed amount of time. And then there's a day where you bring all of those back and you invite those who've added to your life to your home and you pay homage to Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and show gratitude for the things that you have in your life that enrich you in that way. And so if I were to say in our family I think it would be those items that we hold on to. My piano I don't play the piano but my kids do. And so it's a trigger of the memory for growth, music, enrichment, beauty all of those things in one object. Doesn't necessarily have to be that particular piano So heirloom is a really different word because I just don't have that sense of thing. I mean, I guess I would have to say our family pictures for the same reason Cause it contributes to that overall growth together, journey together.

Joy Bork: 10:00

This is another reason why I just love Kathy. In three short minutes, she just challenged my view in how I relate to things. It feels like such a different reference point, yet, I think I've stumbled upon some of what she shared throughout my own journey as well. I want to be attached to people. I want to be attached to the memories of where I've been, who has been with me, and what I have learned along the way. I just don't think I had put words to it in quite this way. My friend Rachael had a deeply profound answer to the"do you have anything you would consider irreplaceable" question. Here's Rachael:

Rachael Proulx: 10:44

I don't think so. I think I used to, years and years ago, and I can pinpoint a couple of moments. I just don't want to be attached to things. I want to be attached to people. So there are people and there are moments that are irreplaceable. I don't want to be upset over losing a thing.

Joy Bork: 11:02

How did you get there?

Rachael Proulx: 11:04

I got there because my dad was sick when I was in junior high and went into the hospital after a quadruple bypass surgery. And was in the ICU in a room called the pit for four and a half months. And he is the first person in the history of the hospital to survive that room. Children were not allowed in it, and many times when they thought he was going to pass away, I was in sixth grade at the time when he went in, they would page my mom at my school. Because they were trying to find her to tell her, to get to the hospital right away. So they try her at work and it was just like protocol to try to find the parent. So it was awful to like sit in algebra class and kids are like, what's going on and think,"wow my dad could be dying right now. And I'm sitting here with junior high kids who are worried about boys and crap that I just don't care about." So. That happened a little bit there. And then I think going through some life events where things were taken away or willingly sold off. And I really like less. And the few moments where I thought this year, I'm going to buy myself this nice thing. Like the first diamond necklace I bought and I was probably in my twenties and it was winter and I was driving to a DMV that I hadn't been to before. And no sooner did I get out of the car and get in, and I went like this, I thought, wow. It probably fell off in the snow. And I kind of thought, I hope someone finds it cause it's Christmas. But yeah. like, I don't want to get so psyched and invested in like this thing. And then something happens to it and I'm like,"Oh no!" So I kind of just went, yeah, it's not the right priority anyway. Like the irreplaceable thing as a sixth grader was my dad was in the ICU for four and a half months. And then on the cardiac ward for three, and the irreplaceable was, I don't know what my last words were to my dad. Like, that's the thing. Like I left a friend yesterday after dinner. And texted when I got home and I went, I forgot to say, I love you before I left. So I'm saying it in a text.

Joy Bork: 13:15

I am so grateful to Rachael for sharing this story. This is such a grounding perspective. What are my priorities? How am I using the gift of time that I have right now to add value to the people around me who truly are irreplaceable? Tim said it really well:

Tim Duivenvoorden: 13:36

I feel like most material things you can replace or, you know, even things that are difficult to replace doesn't mean it's impossible to replace them, whereas people, they're pretty unique.

Joy Bork: 13:46

This is a whole other thing to be thankful for. My wonderfully unique people who truly are irreplaceable to me. So far, we've talked about moments, ideas, philosophies, and people being irreplaceable. But the adventure isn't over yet! Here's Adrianne to share about what is irreplaceable in his life:

Adrianne Arendse: 14:14

This is a really strange answer because I think it's all of these really tough experiences I've had. They're subjective, obviously. One of the mistakes I made when I was very young was to compare: I'd sort of think,"Oh, but you know, I'm not growing up in Beirut in the eighties," And so that sort of thing is not fair on yourself to do and I know that now, but I used to do that when I was much younger. So I think that some of the roughest things I've gone through have given me the opportunity to learn. To be something more. If you think about, Michelangelo, this whole, this is credit should be attributed to him about how he wasn't creating the sculpture. He was uncovering it. And I feel like time does that to people. And I think that harsh conditions, not that they're necessary, can sometimes accelerate some parts of that process. So you, have this opportunity to discover who you are, and it's hard to embrace. It's really hard because you know, some of these things are harrowing, and they're harrowing for you. So it's not like they're on scale with somebody else, I often think that those experiences they're kind of irreplaceable. And this is a weird thing to say. I'm not saying that I'm grateful for them in some kind of grand, warm, super Zen way. I'm saying I really appreciate the opportunity they've given me because I can see what I've learned from some of them more and more as I continue to grow up. I'm a big fan of the idea that if you're still breathing, you can still learn.

Joy Bork: 15:56

This is such a profound concept. Being grateful for the irreplaceable hardships that shaped us into uncovering who we are and who we are continuing to become. I've said it often. I don't want to go back and relive anything I've been through to this point. But I sure am grateful for the things that I've learned along the way. I am a much more centered and present human now than I was five years ago. And so much of that can be attributed to the opportunities I've been given to learn and grow. There was one item that kept coming up as an answer to the,"what do you consider irreplaceable" question. Something I hadn't considered yet. Here's Alexis to share with us all about it.

Alexis Carter: 16:43

The question that stuck with me is what is something that you consider irreplaceable or what would you cry over if you lost it? I was trying to think what I consider irreplaceable, like inanimate objects, people, but I don't know. I've always really loved photographs. Pictures have always been something important. Like even back in the day before people were doing digital stuff, I like always got pictures printed, put them in albums. I think it wasn't so much the actual photograph, but the memories attached to it. And so I remember when I would hear people talk about their homes being on fire and they've lost everything and how tragic that is to lose your home. But I always thought,Oh, if I could grab something on my way out, it might be like, pictures I think just because of the memories they stand for and why I have so many around me, that was the first thing that came to my mind.

Joy Bork: 17:38

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. They hold so much weight, so much life. And often, at least for me, they are taken and then forgotten. And still each picture is a memento of a particular moment. There was a reason for that picture, a motivation behind it. A connection or a task. A person or an object. For just a moment, life was still. Here's Ken to tell us a story about irreplaceable still life:

Ken Behnke: 18:14

That's a topic on its own. And that's connected. To family history. For the moment, it seems like I'm the only one that's concerned about photos and what they mean in our life. I'm thinking back to Steve Spear, who I really look up to and we've been good friends for a long time. And a lot of times when you do a wedding or if you do a funeral, he would say, look at the photos of your life and see the things that have happened. And the things you've done along the way, and that's kind of what I'm doing and it doesn't matter to anybody else until they sit down and look at the photos. I scanned, I mean, we're talking thousands of family photos. Black and white photos of the farm that he used to live on. And things like that. I scanned all that stuff in and we were over at her cousin's house earlier this year. I we started going through them and then they were just like, wow. Where'd you get these? I took the time to scan them! So they don't mean anything until you see them and it brings back a lot of memories. It opens a lot of things that went on in your past or things that you might not even known about. People that are long dead that you've never seen or met, but now you have photos of them. I lament that. I don't have a lot of photos of my great grandparents or their great grandparents. Great, great grandparents. So, they're only little stories and things that I have to piece together through genealogy, not being totally certain that I'm on the right path. But when you find out all these names, that line up with everything else, then you can put the pieces together and figure out that that person was a relative. That's what I'm trying to create now.

Joy Bork: 19:48

Pictures allow us to piece together stories of what has been. I so love that about photography! In my head, diverting a few degrees away from photos, leads us to items or heirlooms that have value because of the time period in which they were used. Or who they belong to. Caitlin has a very interesting story for us about heirlooms from her family.

Caitlin Meyerowitz: 20:13

My grandparents and I guess my mom are immigrants. And my dad's side also, my grandparents were immigrants. A lot of stuff was kind of new or more from when they came to the country and not from back then. My grandmother passed away in November, so I was trying to hoard a lot of stuff to hold on to her maybe, but also to that feeling of like, I want to have something to pass on. But my mom actually pulled out the other day, a, lace bed cover and like pillow covers that her grandmother made. And she had this story of she got it right before she got married and her grandmother wasn't giving it to any of my mom's cousins. And. The grandmother asks like, Hey, is there anything you want for your wedding? And my mom was like that. That bed cover that you made for your wedding and they never got to use it. And so my mom wanted it and she never got to use it either. And now it's going to become a wall piece for this wall here behind me, which we haven't quite set up yet, but she's very excited about having it out now and displayed and, and she can tell that story and more people will know the story. Cause I didn't know she had it, she kinda kept it hidden away for a while. So.

Joy Bork: 21:30

Of your grandma's stuff that you wanted to hoard, what are like two of the things that you grabbed cause they're important to you?

Caitlin Meyerowitz: 21:37

Her Shabbat candle holders. She was amazing. She would find like this gallery that she found with that would show local artists and stuff. And this one artist made, I don't even know what it's made out of. I think it's like, clay or something, but it was these like house candle holders, and the two were from the same artist, with a little plate underneath to hold them. And it's etched out, all around the edge of the plate and then the holders and it's, very delicate and it's fairly new. Like, I kind of remember when she got them, but it's still hers. It's still got her scent emotional scent. She was very much into finding small different things. She wouldn't go to the big store and buy, you know, candle holders. It had to touch her in a way, so she would go and buy them.

Joy Bork: 22:32

Hold up. Caitlyn just said something that I can't get past.

Caitlin Meyerowitz: 22:38

It's still got her scent emotional scent.

Joy Bork: 22:42

Emotional scent. That feels like the key that unlocks this entire concept of irreplaceable objects. This isn't a completely solid theory, but it's a working hypothesis that I'm developing right now as I speak. Photos are incredibly important because of the emotional scent attached. Like in last week's episode, things we are sentimental toward are valuable because of that emotional scent that we have ascribed to it. This all ties in as well with what Dawn Goldworm was talking about with scent being inextricably attached to emotion and memory. Oh, my gosh. It all fits together. This is seriously so amazing. I can't. Our last two stories today are about items that are irreplaceable due to their age. Here are Ken and Nick to talk about their heirlooms:

Ken Behnke: 23:35

Over there in the china cabinet, we have a glass that my great grandfather bought at the Colombian exposition, which was the world's fair of 1893. And it's got his initials on it and engravings or etchings of some of the buildings. When you think about it, that glass is 127 years old. I wanted to think about where that glass has been in 127 years. And I didn't even know it existed until about a month ago. It was in my mother's China cabinet. And when we cleaned it out, it was like,"where did this come from"? It was probably passed down from my great grandfather to my grandmother. Because that was her parents, and to my mother and now to me. So yeah, that's significant.

Joy Bork: 24:19

What is something that you consider irreplaceable?

Nick Budmats: 24:22

My father's wristwatch. He passed away and it was given to me and I had both of my great grandfather's pocket watches. So I don't think I can get those replaced. Those are irreplaceable. Someday I'll pass them on to my grandchildren.

Joy Bork: 24:38

That's amazing. Did they still work?

Nick Budmats: 24:40

My dad's does. I wear it periodically. I have my grandfather's watch too once in a while I'll wear that. Um, but my great grandfather's are both pocket watches, older ones. They just. If I knew someplace that I would trust to get them serviced and taken care of, then I would probably get that done. But other than that, I haven't, I mean, they're kind of big. It's not like, I mean, they must have had larger pockets then.

Joy Bork: 25:07

So here we are. What an episode! Truly, what an honor it has been to hold space for and memorialize these stories. This is, in its own way, kind of becoming my way to memorialize moments in time. To capture stories as they are and give them a place to be heard and experienced. I love this so much. The life experiences encompassed in this episode are indeed irreplaceable and I am so grateful they were willingly shared with me. If you've got a story about something that you value, because it's a marker of your overcoming something, leave a message on the storyline by calling(312) 620-0567. Or record a voice memo and email it to me at herewearethepodcast@gmail.com. You can also get in touch with me by leaving a comment on Here We Are's Facebook or Instagram, just search for Here We Are: The Podcast. I feel like I've said this a lot so far in this episode, but it bears saying again. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to this episode and shared the gift of your stories with me. Thank you to Pamela, Kathy, Rachael, Tim, Adrianne, Alexis, Ken, Caitlyn, and Nick for letting me interview you. Thanks to Lisa for the logo. And thank you so much to all of you for listening and spreading the word about this podcast. I can't do it without you. If you want to go a step further, join my Patreon tribe for as little as$2 a month. You can help me keep this podcast going. And hear some of the full length interviews of the delightful humans I've talked to along the way. As always, remember that curiosity wins. And the world needs more nerds. Bye.