A Journal of My Mid-Life Crisis

21 February 1999 - More Love Than Anyone Can Ever Imagine

A few years ago I was at an opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and saw a piece that made a deep impresion on me. I think the artist was named Mike Kelley and the piece was titled something like "More Love Than Anyone Can Ever Imagine." (I'm almost certain that isn't quite right, but the name definitely included the phrase "more love.") At any rate, it was a collage, of sorts, made out of various bits of handcrafts - afghans, stuffed animals, etc. - and the obvious point was how much love went into these creations. Yet they had been found at thrift shops.

I'm mentioning this because I sometimes have lunch at the Chinese restaurant in the food court at Westchester Faire, which is an antique mall near LAX. And, after eating, I stroll through the showcase area. My collecting obsessions are specific enough that it's rare for me to even be tempted. But it's gotten me thinking about the emotional implications of our possessions. I often see things there that I can't imagine anyone ever wanting to own. Oh, sure, some of them were probably gifts chosen out of bad taste or changing fashion. But I suspect that a lot of items, absurd as they seem to me, were once loved by somebody.

This week I saw something that I was tempted by and that I realized almost nobody I know would understand the appeal. It was a fur stole. And, even more politically incorrect, a fox fur stole, of the sort which is basically just fox pelts (complete with heads) sewn together.

Now, I know I could never get away with wearing fur in public here and, frankly, it's not like I really have any occassion for which it would be suitable. (For the record, and I am sure this will get me an angry email or three, I don't really have qualms about fur per se and would wear, say, a chinchilla coat if the skins were from ranched animals. That's a whole other subject, though, than the one I mean to talk about here.) But my mother had a fox stole like that when I was a kid and it must have been given to me when she decided it was too ratty to wear any more. And that fox stole was just like another stuffed animal to me - better, in fact, because it was softer and plusher and it was unique while most of my animals were the female counterparts of ones my brother had. Elliot had Jack the Rabbit to go with my Jacqueline (named for the Kennedys) and Theodore Bear to match Theodora. But Foxy was mine and mine alone.

I stood there in the antique mall stroking that stole and thinking about Foxy, who was probably long since condemned to some thrift shop bag of his own. It's more money than I'm willing to pay and it's dyed blonde instead of Foxy's natural red and I don't really have a place to store it properly. But it reminded me that every item in those stalls has a story. Did some elderly woman die without a daughter who would love foxes as much as she did? Or was there a horrible scene when a teenager turned on her mother who'd been saving the fur for her and railed about animal rights and the cruelty? Could another 8 year old have looked at that stole as I did, as a somewhat superior breed of stuffed animal, but met tragedy, leading her parents to sell the stole so they would no longer be reminded of their loss?

They shouldn't call Westchester Faire an Antique Mall. They should just put up a big sign saying "memories for sale" and wait for people to pour in, looking to buy more love than anyone could ever imagine.