There are no photos that directly illustrate this posting. The events recalled herein took place back when very expensive film was used to take pictures of very important people at very important events. No one would have thought to focus the camera on a ceramic ornament in a plain farmhouse living-room. If a camera was brought out at a child’s party, it was to photograph the birthday child with the birthday cake. All else could be left to memory. Or imagination.

            Most children have chores to do that they hate—if not, they should have. Whether that be shoveling out the debris in their bedrooms or setting the table or putting their dishes in the dishwasher after a meal or cleaning up dog poop in the backyard, compulsory tasks prepare children for responsibilities of adulthood. Depending on how the regimen is implemented, such chores may be readily transformed into long-lasting habits, founded on consideration for others and reverence for good order—or they may become passionately hated inevitabilities.

 My parents meant well. While I might insist now that their slavish devotion to work could have been balanced with greater understanding of the merits of play, I am grateful for many of the habits they instilled in me. I tried to do something of the same for our own children, with what I hoped was more tolerance for play and some allowance for the development of childish free will. Only they are in a position to evaluate the success of the plan.

One of the duties I had as a child was to dust the living-room in our old farm house. With rags cut from worn-out clothes, I had to wipe the dust off every single picture edge, every rung of every wooden chair, and the least ¼-inch bit of surface on our venerable Heinzman upright piano. The top of the piano was a particular horror because, along with several framed photographs, it had ornaments (all gifts probably), each of which sat on a crocheted doily. Every ornament had to be moved, dusted to a point of immaculate polish, the piano surface underneath also polished, and then replaced precisely, in the center of the doily. Perhaps I exaggerate my mother’s perfectionism here, but I doubt it.

My detestation of the task focused especially on a large parrot of garish colors. I knew nothing of parrots, might well have been enchanted by a real parrot—this particular, ridiculously heavy bird became my scapegoat, bearing for me a confusing brew of emotions. I was often a lonely child, always bookish, addicted to escape into worlds that were glamorous and exciting, where conflicts were always resolved in favor of the young heroine. In those imaginary worlds, there were no ceramic parrots.

As a teen-ager, I hated the abominable thing even more, now for what I perceived as its ugliness, its absolute inelegancy. Was I developing a more sophisticated aesthetic? Or just displacing my unhappiness over my parents’ strictness regarding social activities onto an innocent, old-fashioned ornament? It’s hard to sort out because I don’t remember seeing any more sophisticated examples of artwork. Nor did I resist all of my mother’s cleanliness routines; several have become mine as well, regardless of how much I had once disliked them.

So it could have been just the act of dusting. To this day, it is the household chore that I postpone as long as possible.

            Decades later, I was now the disagreeable adult who insisted that her sons learn to do their chores, preferably without complaint. And at the same time, I was also the adult child who was now responsible for dispersing or disposing of my parents’ possessions after the death of my father and my mother’s move to a nursing home. The work of sorting clothing, of deciding the fate of furniture pieces, of looking through old cards, books, letters, photographs was all overlaid with the pain of loss and regret over unfinished stories. Such final processes are never easy. I tossed various small ornaments into a box, swearing never to place them on any surface in our house. And I packed up the ungainly, still miserably heavy parrot into a box of its own. Some decisions can be postponed indefinitely by the simple expedient of carting boxes into the basement.

Then came the planning of a birthday party. For which son, I no longer remember. Unlike today’s popular themed birthday parties held in gymnasiums, play places, swimming pools, etc., this party was an economical home affair with simple games and homemade food. In a moment of insane inspiration, I conceived a game of “toss and break.”

 Out came a whole box of ancient dishes, cracked and unmatched, unusable and so unsaleable. On our cement patio, which could later be swept clean, I set up one dish at a time, allowing exuberant and gleeful little boys to throw balls and break dishes. There was a guilty delight in watching the ensuing destruction. I brought out a few remaining ornaments as well. Marvelous smashes they made.

 The parrot, however, I saved for its own destiny. Later, when the young guests had gone home, probably with stories that horrified their parents, I brought out the parrot. I put it up on a pedestal of some sort, still dusty from its packing box, and fetched one of our sons’ bats.

 Ach, I can still recall the delicious pleasure with which I anticipated the parrot’s final “putting down.” Well, a dignified euthanasia it was not. One swing – and the most satisfying shattering of all. Years of dislike dissipated in one blow.  Our highly entertained sons then demanded a turn, and I let them swing at the larger pieces. Rest in pieces, old parrot. May your descendants be real birds; I shall not love even the memory of this artificial parrot into reality.

 That objects can gain symbolic worth and become lastingly loveable, I know well from experience. Any parent knows about the special blanket or the stuffed toy. All it takes is one loss of such a precious object to educate adults about its crucial importance. If they are honest, parents should also confess to having special things that hold too many memories to be discarded. Every time I try to scale back my library, my hands refuse to toss some old books that, though I haven’t read them in decades, have become almost sacred objects. It will fall to our sons, no doubt, to rip the covers apart and toss them into the recycle bin. So be it. I am content with that prospect.

 Call it a necessary process of transference, sacralisation—whatever term is appropriate here, even “scapegoat” (usually a reference to people)—for objects can learn to embody for us emotions that are too complex to be readily or safely expressed otherwise. It is the way of those objects that have been around long enough to have achieved some character, some essence of their own.

 Someday, if and when the COVID-19 pandemic is well and truly over, I would like to build a huge bonfire out of disposable masks collected on neighbourhood streets and parking lots. On any given day, one can fill bags upon bags of them, unfortunately. It will be a huge, beautiful fire, and I shall take care to stand downwind of the smoke.