The Connection in Collections

If you’re going to start a collection, choose something that you can hold in your hands; something that won’t break the piggy bank; something to remember where you’ve been or where you’re going; to commemorate an occasion or mark the passing of time. Each time you pick something up from your collection, a memory will come back to you.

I collect key chains. Like most collections, it started by accident. It’s a strange thing to collect because they’re really not worth anything. They’re not unusual or expensive or unique or rare. Everyone probably has ten or twelve of them lying around somewhere. I doubt they’ll ever be mistaken for valuable antiques and when I die, they’ll probably be donated to the Goodwill or tossed in the dumpster along with all my hopelessly (even now) out of date wardrobe items that so appall my 24 year old daughter.

You can pick up a free keychain in a gas station or your bank or the grocery store. They’re sold in airports and gift shops and department stores all over the world. They’re small and portable bits of stone and plastic and wood and metal hanging from a ring or a clip and you can find them everywhere. They’re as common as penny collections and there’s an oversized one of those in my collection too. You can take anything and attach it to a 49¢ clip and chain and have an original key chain for your own collection.

When I first started collecting them, I carried them attached to my keys. But as my collection exceeded 20 and showed no sign of slowing, I had to find another place for them, as they were getting heavy enough to damage my ignition, not to mention my posture from carrying them around.

They went from hanging on magnetized hooks on the door of the refrigerator, down both sides of a four drawer filing cabinet and rested, at times in a plastic storage box when I couldn’t find a place to hang them. Sometimes little people would come to visit me. The collection had grown and the reached almost to the floor. Just the perfect height for little fingers. They couldn’t hurt them. Most were washable and the ones that weren’t could be replaced. They were most fascinated with the little train that played four different sounds when you pushed the button. That’s the only one that had to be replaced regularly as it ended up in toy bags and back packs on a regular basis after these visits.

Finally, my thoughtful husband bought me a giant bulletin board and hung it over my desk. (Actually the jangling of the chains always alerted me to his ice cream raids on the freezer but it was thoughtful.) The pushpin thumbtacks hold the collection as if someone had that very purpose in mind when they invented pushpins. I started to hang them in orderly lines. And then I thought it would be more interesting to see where they’d end up if I just hung them as I took them out of the box. The English crown hangs next to the Dutch shoes and the magic 8 ball hangs under the cuckoo clock from Germany. Nebraska and New Jersey coexist peacefully and the jade from Japan and Amethyst from China never clash, separated by the white quartz from a trip to sea out of Boston Harbor.

After awhile, the more well-traveled members of my family began picking them up for me. I have one from Singapore, four from Saudi Arabia and two from Switzerland. Some have the names of cities I’ve visited, and some are symbolic. I got one at a wedding that serves as a bottle opener and has the happy couple’s name and wedding date printed on it. They’re still married and have two kids. My father-in-law picks them up at the grocery store or the hardware store or he comes across the old ones he had stored in a junk drawer for years and gives me one each time he comes to visit. His choices are practical – there’s a miniature sewing kit, one that turns into a pair of manicure scissors, a small set of three tiny screwdrivers, a miniature calculator and a tiny camera. My mother picks up silly key chains with sayings like, “I’m not weird, I’m gifted” and “Weird but Lovable.” (Thanks, Mom. Subtle, she’s not.) There’s the troll my daughter used to have attached to her backpack for good luck in fourth grade. And the #3 that represents Dale Earnhardt, bought the year he died. My grandmother made her first transatlantic trip a few years ago to visit her sister in Hawaii so I have a surfboard and a pair of flip-flops, both in hot pink and neon green. There are the heavy pewter Hershey kisses from Hershey Park Pennsylvania, a moose from Maine and the Eiffel tower from Paris. The miniature picture frame key chains with my family hang closest to the desk, where I only have to glance up to see them. Number 1 Mom and Number 1 Dad hang side by side – a Christmas gift from my daughter when she was eight. She spent her whole allowance on those key chains. There’s a little plastic pig and a jolly green giant from my sister in law in Florida and a holographic angel from my niece in New York. A little devil hangs to the left and below Portuguese money and the moon turns it’s back on a star. The hearts hang in a little group below the angels and a roller blade and Tigger hangs out with Tommy Tomato. Miniature lanterns, flashlights and whistles, stuffed animals and a plastic turtle all have a special place on the board and in my memory.

If there are little boxes under the tree, at Christmas, I know they’re for me and I’m excited and relieved they aren’t expensive pieces of jewelry. They’re important little pieces of each giver, given to me to show me where they’ve been and who they are, attaching us by a link and a chain. And most important to me, that they were thinking of me while they were away. Maybe they’ll all come together when I’m gone and take back the ones they’ve given me and remember me when they start their own collection of key chains. And remember where they’ve been and who they are and maybe, if I’m lucky, they’ll remember me too.