Wheelbarrows Are a Form of Wealth

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I already knew my life was one of great bounty, but this premise was newly confirmed when I stepped outside the other day and saw this little line-up of wheelbarrows waiting to be of service. Yep, three of them!

Perhaps it seems excessive. Even for those who understand the value of a good wheelbarrow, why would we need three? Well, for a long time we had two, a regular and a back-up, and there were indeed times when two were needed...to haul away brush and branches with a co-worker, for example, making half the number of trips. And then, when we were cleaning and clearing out Monte's brother's house to ready it for sale, we came upon the black one, sturdy and functional, stored in the garage, hardly ever used. We knew it belonged at the ranch.

I suppose we could have seen this as an opportunity to get rid of the oldest one...and maybe we eventually will. But the thing about a good wheelbarrow is that it eventually turns to art. Check out the color and patina in the picture to your left. That lovely faded blue, the splotches of rust, the weathered wood frame...it's taken on the mystique of old farm equipment. (I hope you know I'm serious.)

No less an observer than William Carlos Williams saw the poetry and importance of a wheelbarrow, immortalizing his red one in the rain. Aside from its inherent functionality–– and this one is a little hard to steer, but it works––an old wheelbarrow becomes an object of beauty.

I have been trying to streamline my life lately, getting rid of stuff rather than accumulating. I realize I have a problem when it comes to sentiment, and much of sentiment is paper...old letters, cards, drawings, clippings...memorabilia gathered long before everything was brought to us via computer. I'm working on this area.

But there other items, more prosaic, whose usefulness simply never expires, and are thus a form of wealth.  In addition to wheelbarrows, I would include in this category bowls, bags, and towels. I don't know when I first developed this peculiar hierarchy of objects that keep their value, but do any of these need explanation? The first two facilitate storing, sorting, organizing, transporting...you can never have too many.

Bowls have meant utility and beauty since ancient times, and bags of all kinds, from leather purses to grocery sacks of twine, even bags within bags, give me a sense of security somehow, the illusion that I might one day be in control of the chaos that is my life, and that the things I need to carry will be portable.

As for towels, one must consider a towel in its many incarnations, plump and fresh for after bath, tattered and faded in its bring-it-to-the-beach or happy-dog-drying stage, and aging with dignity as a cleaning cloth.

The first time I went to the house of my daughter and her boyfriend, I was dismayed by what I perceived as a dearth of towels. I promptly went out and bought her some, garnering not gratitude but the sort of eye-rolling exasperation that meant I had meddled. I started to explain, but she cut me off. "I know, Mom," she said. "Towels are a form of wealth."