I make a habit of seeing the BEST in all objects and hold onto objects that are damaged or need repair. I call these objects “my orphan-things” and it gives me great satisfaction to breathe new life into those sad objects. Let me disclose the top FIVE DUMB THINGS I did to objects in an effort to refinish, refurbish, rewire, reupholster, or restore art or antique furniture. Perhaps this will also shine a light on psychological relationships to objects.
I love to clean old paintings covered with years of nicotine. I’m a good re-upholsterer, refinisher, and painter. I make my family nuts, too, as I always have a project. I bought thirty wooden salad bowls, all from thrift stores, and refinished them, stacking them in the kitchen.
Is that a symptom of a compulsion?
In 2013, after years of debate, hoarding disorder was officially recognized as a separate Diagnostic and Statistical Manual psychiatric diagnosis. The history of literature is full of characters whose actions point to a disjointed relationship to the material world. Dante Alighieri’s Inferno in The Divine Comedy narrates the Fourth Circle of Hell. In this realm misers and prodigals push stone weights back and forth to each other in a circle: “They struck against each other, and then they all turned around, and rolled the weights back, screaming ‘Why do you hoard’ and ‘Why do you throw away?’”
Characters in literature and in our families may exhibit an anxious relationship with objects, such as in hoarding disorders. Other “named” psychological personality traits deal with a person’s relationship to objects, often named after characters in literature. You might say a relationship with objects, good or bad, tells a story, and may narrate one’s life. In fact I wonder about Plyushkin’s Syndrome, named after a character in Nikolai Gogol’s novel Dead Souls. Stephan Plyushkin worries over, saves, and fixes small useless objects that should be discarded. In one scene he scrapes the mold from a cake and re-gifts it. At the same time he neglects his acres of farmlands.
Sound familiar! I spend more money on the small stuff in two storage lockers than the stuff is worth. I have furniture to rework, paintings to reframe and clean, and books waiting for the right house. “When will that happen,” my partner asks?
Here are five of my Plyushkin-esque moves:
I hung onto a 1940s hardwood framed sofa for thirty-five years, waiting for the day I found the time to re-upholster that beast. Finally found forty yards of fabric for under $5,000, made the investment and spent six months working on the sofa, covering it in a light lemon silk striped with deep black. One month after I moved it into my condominium, my friend surprised me with a gift of a dachshund puppy not yet house trained.- Going through a closet of floral arranging vases, it dawned on me that a textured blue midcentury vessel would make a perfect table lamp. I asked my electrician to drill and electrify it. When he brought it back, he mentioned the name on the bottom, “BEATO” for the world famous Ojai potter Beatrice Wood. There goes $2,000.
- A friend asked me to help furnish her grandson’s nursery, and I spruced up a thrift store $20 dresser made of medium density fiberboard. I used blue latex paint, which, once we installed the dresser, peeled off. One huge mess later, somebody told me only chalk paint worked in that case. I often spend far more money fixing a thing than it cost me originally.
- Lazy and rushed to finish a project, I dismounted and spray painted hardware from a dresser instead of sanding down the rust. Imagine how that looked. Later I learned that simply soaking rusted hardware in vinegar and then buffing with steel wool works well.
- I saved my dad’s dental office 1960s midcentury modern waiting room vinyl couch he gave me when he retired in the 1980s. When I bought a cabin at Lake Arrowhead, I thought PERFECT, I would finally enjoy that thing. Problem is, it sticks to rear ends in hot weather, and when exposed to wet swimwear folks slide right off. In winter it’s freezing cold and very hard. OH WELL.
Differing from Plyushkin’s Syndrome
One might suffer from another psychiatric disorder around objects named for the historical philosopher of cynicism, Diogenes Syndrome, in which one has an apathetic relationship to objects and doesn’t care about any “thing,” such as kitchen garbage, old paper, and other useless objects. Fitting that this apathetic mind set towards objects should be named after the 300 BCE Corinthian philosopher, Diogenes, who was known for parading nude with a lantern above his head in bright daylight, claiming to search for “one honest man.” An older relative of mine, looking back, might have suffered from this disorder. I bet you all know someone like this: she saved old milk cartons and used them for mini trash bins, and then SAVED the milk cartons. Me, I am not there yet. I can easily give things away, and one day I will.