A HOARDER? MOI?

  

“The Yale Daily News” wanted to do a report on faculty offices that had interesting decor or collections. Someone suggested mine. The poor reporter thought she’d just breeze in, take a quick photo, and move on. Ha!

 

Well, I wish I had a camera to capture the look on her face when she stepped into my office. Her jaw dropped. There were touchstones everywhere!

 

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that my family is missing the throwaway gene. When I told a psychologist friend who knew about my collections of stuff that “I see the poetry in everything,” he chuckled and replied, “That’s a hunk of bunk, Diane. You’re a hoarder!”

 

Above are some of the photos of my beloved Yale office that I posted on Facebook, but there are many more including the two panoramas. I would have liked to take you on a full tour, and Jim made three videos that we hoped would allow me to do a version of that. Remember the old tv show, "You Are There"? Well, that's what I was going for in trying to give a personal tour of my office. However, we’re not sure why, but not even the resident technogenius who likes challenges could get Blogger.com to smile on our efforts to include the videos where I tell stories of many of the office treasures. Mostly Jim did them just for me, and I'm glad to have them. Nothing does more to ease the pain of a hoarder/collector than to have her stuff documented. But I'm guessing that you may have already heard more than enough about my formerly bursting office.

 

 

I have to admit that to empty my office when I retired was pretty painful.

I had invited colleagues and students to come by and help themselves to some souvenirs. It helped and comforted me to think that some of my “treasures” might make new memories of their own. For example, I love that my colleague Lauren wanted to have the trompe-l’oeil of a window that opened onto a view of the Italian countryside! In the photo where I'm seated, it's over my left shoulder. When I look out my window in Umbria, I picture us here together. 

 

It was fun to see the reactions to this post on Facebook. I could hardly believe that Elaine, aka the “Anti-Clutter Queen” actually admitted that some of my stuff looked nice!

 

Bill Lancaster who admired it said, with kind diplomacy, that although interesting, it’s “too much for the eye to take in.” Of course, he’s right--That’s what the Yale Daily News photographer thought, too. She ended up deciding to take a picture of just one shelf for her article. She chose the one with the bird theme.

 

But in my defense, I explained that my goal was to forge a relationship with my writing students during their first year, and have them want to keep returning through graduation. I wanted to have my office be a cozy, welcoming space. Junior Year in France buddy Martha said she’d never felt free to visit a professor’s office, and liked my attitude.

 

Dear former French student Todd who got me into Facebook in the first place called the office “Le Musée,” which I was tickled to see he spelled and gendered correctly.

 

Junior Year in France roommate, Karen, wanted to know what happened to all the office treasures that didn’t find a new home or that I couldn’t part with. They came with me. A well-loved number have found their way into the living quarters of our downsized new home, the bottom two floors of an 1850 brownstone. They seem to like it here. 

 

Fortunately for me, the “new” home came with a large basement that used to be empty. But it’s currently populated with —you guessed it— many boxes filled with my poetic treasures, awaiting their moment.