The Collection

I came home one evening after class to find my two daughters playing on the floor with objects I didn’t immediately recognize. 

As I walked toward them I saw that Lowery was playing with what looked like a prehistoric camel being ridden by a tiny man in a bathrobe. And London was happily chewing on what I could only assume was a giant, plastic slug.

“What is that!?” I demanded.

“A ronto,” Lowery said, seemingly annoyed at my ignorance.

“What’s in London’s mouth?” I asked.

“That’s Jabba,” she said. “I took Luke away from her because she could have choked on the saber.”

“Lowery!" I shouted. "These are daddy’s things and are not to be played with!” 

Upon hearing my voice rise, Jim walked in from the kitchen with a sippy cup in each hand. 

“Welcome home!” he exclaimed. “See what I gave the girls?”

“You voluntarily gave them these?” I asked, shocked.

He looked at them, smiling as they played.

“The time had come,” he replied.

Jim’s Star Wars collection has long been an immensely important part of his life. To him they were not just trinkets and toys. They were his life played out in memorabilia. 

The six movies, like most boys from his generation, took him from childhood to adulthood, and were as good a marker of milestones as any tick mark on a door frame or album full of pictures. 

Jim’s collection is vast. And impressive. And takes up the majority of our attic. Tub upon tub, bursting with mint condition, still-in-the-box action figures. Stacks of comic books, magazines, cups, folders, stickers, video games and movie stubs. And, his proudest piece, the complete set of trading cards from the original movies. His crowning jewel: a mint condition R2D2 card, the first one he ever got, which he accidentally stumbled upon in a bag of Wonder Bread at the age of seven and felt his life change forever.

Jim’s collection has been with him longer than anything else in his life. And while I would gently nudge him to do something with it (Sell it! Display it! Something!), he always hesitated to act. 

But the other night, while I was in class, he pulled several boxes from the attic and started to sift through the piles. He pulled out action figures, coloring books and a few school supplies and set them out for Lowery. Then he found some larger, plastic figures and a pile of plush Wookiees for London to chew on. 

Later, after they had both gone to bed, one snuggled up to a plastic Millennium Falcon, I asked what brought him to finally hand over his collection.

He explained that the collection had been a great part of his childhood and his years as a single, childless man. He enjoyed the whimsy of it all, and amassing his collection had been a comforting constant in his life. But today, for some reason, he wanted to watch an actual child enjoy the toys. The coloring books. The blankets. The cups. The pens. The Legos. 

I pressed him further. What if the kids destroy them? He had kept the toys in mint condition until tonight. The stormtroopers would certainly be armless by morning. 

He shrugged. “I don’t really care what they do with them.”

Jim’s collection has always been something I’ve supported, encouraged even, but never truly understood.  I understand what it means to have a favorite movie in one’s formative years, of course, but they never made Clueless action figures. And even if they did, I’ve never felt like much of a collector. 

Even for the things I love. Like books. And wine. 

When it comes to books, we are big on donating and restocking. When it comes to wine, I’m big on sharing. And seconds.

Collecting just isn’t in my nature. 

When I explained this to Jim, the night he opened his collection up to our children, he disagreed with me instantly.

“What about your writing?” he pressed.

I laughed, amused at his volley.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said, pouring us a second glass of wine.

Of the many things I appreciate about Jim, his keen perception is at the top. And when I stopped to think about it, I realized how my writing is similar to his dusty boxes of Ewoks. 

My writing is deeply personal. It’s special to me. It’s important to me. It’s seen me from childhood to adulthood. And it helped me process the pivotal moments in my life: Freshman year of college. Marriage. Pregnancy. Post-partum depression. Motherhood. Graduate school. Work. Life. Cutting bangs. 

It has been my comforting constant.

I have boxes of letters, poems, short stories, journals and essays. And no matter if I was in school or working a job, I’ve always used writing as a way to cope, express, grieve, celebrate and grapple.

Over the years, I’ve amassed quite a collection. It’s a collection I’m protective of. It’s a collection that feels like tiny pieces of myself packed in a box in the attic. 

For the past five years I've allowed people to see some of my collection, and a few have told me they may have some value (though nothing like Jim’s first edition Luke Skywalker trading card). This isn’t to say my collection is actually valuable. I mean, the collectable Star Wars cups from Burger King aren’t either, but every collector has his pride.

In fact, no one may see any value in my collection. A few laps around eBay showed me how little some of Jim’s mint condition items actually go for. 

Aside from value, I worry what would happen if others viewed my collection. If I handed them over and said I didn’t care what someone did with them. Unlike Jim and his favorite ceramic Yoda, I’ve been too afraid my collection would be abused. Or misused. Or misunderstood.

Yet, I’ve watched our three-year-old rename Yoda “Paul Munchkin” and color all over his face with a purple marker. 

And to my surprise, Jim seems happy she’s made it her own.

So perhaps the value of a collection to others will never be what it was to the collector. But watching Jim’s excitement as our children tear apart his collection motivates me.

And I realize my time has come too.

Maybe Jim has always secretly been waiting on a big antiquity scout to offer a fortune for his spectacular and comprehensive collection. Perhaps he imagined he would become a national news story for making the most amount of money on a single lot sale of memorabilia. Maybe he hoped George Lucas, or JJ Abrams would take him out for drinks to celebrate his unyielding obsession with the franchise.

But instead, he took control over the fate of his collection.

And he gave it away. 

And by gave it away, I mean our children now regularly have Boba Fett as a tea party guest. 

There has certainly been a part of me that has been waiting for Random House to offer me a million dollar advance on a book that would later be a New York Times best seller. And for Tina Fey’s agent to call me to say that, as my biggest fan, Tina insists on writing the forward to my book. 

But instead, I want to control the fate of my collection.

I want to give it away.

And by give it away, I mean self-publish a part of my collection and charge $14.95 a copy.

Coming this summer.