Catching up with Karyn
The Legacy of Laughter: Creating Bonds that Last
In the New York Times today, Ellen Lupton has a column on how to lose a legacy. Lupton examines our relationship with physical things: how keeping a set of dishes within a family for generations provokes feelings of continuity and connectedness – or, loosely paraphrased, how her non-hunting husband wound up with a doe’s head hanging proudly in their suburban living room.
These items can be wonderful, meaningful additions to our lives, Lupton asserts—but they can also be a burden. Storing, moving, and caring for the souvenirs of days gone by can be a challenge – as anyone who has ever tried to decorate for the holidays and move cross country in the same year can tell you!
Even if you want to retain every memento, from your children’s macaroni masterpiece through the dessert menu from the last time you went to Olive Garden, there’s always a risk of loss. Natural disasters, housekeeping concerns, and plain old entropy are conspiring against you...
