Jaeger und Sammler

I am of the gatherer kind. It happens to me naturally. Even as a kid some things, especially scissors, paper and sticky tape used to always end up in my room.

- ‘Nutshell, have you seen xyz?’
- ‘Of course not…’
- ‘Please have a look anyway…’
- ‘Mmmmh… ok… ‘

You could be sure it was somewhere in my room, even though I had no idea how it had got there. I have never acquired and kept a lasting collecting phase, bar for the time in 1991 Petz joined the Timbreclub, and I found I could channel my grandfather’s affection a little better by taking up this hobby. I soon found out though that I was not at all suited for the precision it requires, and, puberty intervened, too, called for or not. I had a fad for seashells for a while, but they gathered dust. I remember owning a lot of cacti at one moment too, and quite a large family of guinea pigs (never resort to gather anything that reproduces!). At one point I bred snails, and frogs, like most kids I suppose, and I am not sure if animals count in this kind of categorisation. As a teenager, I also liked to make obscure shrines of holiday crushes and crashes, in an attempt to preserve memories like marmalade that has long gone off.
Generally, though, I am much too practical as far as normative room decoration is concerned to be an avid ‘collector’. I have seen (true stories!) displays of thousands of perfume samples, beer cartons, porcelain plates, eggcups, moths, and, shockingly, duel pistols. To me the effect is nauseating, because there is too much in too little space. I like the idea of collecting things from the past, antique books and drawing, or furniture that can be used (Danielito drew my attention to this – like so many other areas of experience I had not given it a single thought in my life before someone put my nose into it).
One difference between the gatherer and the collector lies in whether one likes to display things or archive them. I like to have dossiers of stuff I can take out sometimes and look at, change, and hide away again. I like unique things if they have a function around me other than gathering dust. I like books, whether old and beautiful or cheap and good-to-read, it is as easy as that. JosÈe wrote this magnificent story about someone who is addicted to laughs. It is somewhat a comparable case, and I think it has to do with pleasure, not easily explained in words, and usually something academics and other middle-class people frown at.
At the moment, I gather people’s stories, not taking them away from them, but listening to, remembering and inscribing their memories, being interested in their experiences, and having my experience entangling with theirs for a moment. What a fine job I have.