Monday, September 21, 2009

The Avon Bottles Story...

I received an email this weekend, asking me why I collected vintage Avon bottles. Not only do I love the fun designs and interesting shapes the bottles come in, but they bring back a lot of memories.

When I was growing up, my family didn't have a lot of money. My parents worked hard to take care of all of us and there was little extra left over for luxuries. Thusly, the perfume bottles my mom collected were rarities. Some were gifts and some were gifts to herself. She had come from the Philippines with all kinds of dreams and ideas of what life would be like in America. I imagine that these perfume bottles were tokens of that dream, of what life was supposed to be like. When I ask her about them now, she says, "Oh, I forget." Or she just smiles.

As children, we were expressly forbidden to play with them. Regardless, I was going to play with them anyway. I thought I was so clever and no one was going to stop me. So, I waited until my mom laid down to rest and stuck bubblegum in the bells on the doors so they wouldn't ring. (My mom had put bells on the doors so that she knew where we all were in the house.) I got so carried away with my playing that I didn't hear my mom come up. The exact second I saw her, the bottle slipped from my fingers and the contents of the bottle began to spill out all over the brown shag carpet. We were both frozen in that instant and I can almost still hear the sloshy chugging noise the bottle made as the perfume gushed out. Instead of spanking me automatically, she uncharacteristically burst into tears.

The details of how I was punished that day are all foggy now, but the real punishment that came every day after that are fresh in my mind. The perfume had soaked into the carpet and formed an indelible stain, a stain that when walked past would re-awaken and waft up memories of my transgression. When the incident happened, I was probably too young to fully understand it. But later, when I comprehended the struggles my parents went through, the new knowledge developed into a kernel of guilt.

In adulthood, that guilt turned into a motivator. Instead of feeling bad about them working hard, I took pride that their lives were built honestly and through devotion to their family. Over the years, I've picked up dozens of these bottles, little reminders not of the incident and shame, but as small tokens of my own dreams and my own hard work.

And... I like their fun designs and interesting shapes!

7 comments:

peacockfairy said...

What a great story Andrew - thank you for sharing. I hope you are going to keep a few of your most favorite bottles for yourself? If I didn't already have the peacock, I'd be all over it! My friend got me the peacock and owl for Christmas last year.

Andrew Thornton said...

Oh, yes, I have some of my favorites hidden away. I was just getting to the point where I was having TOO MANY favorites.

I think that by posting some of them in sale and allowing some folks to get them is in a way like spreading the joy, letting my memories live on through different people and hopefully give them just as much happiness as I've received.

Cindy Caraway said...

I think anyone can relate to how objects can conjure memories. I'm a great keeper of "artifacts" (as my husband calls them). While most are kept because they signify positive happenings, others are reminders of not such great times. They represent things I don't ever want to forget, repeat or fail to honor. Thanks for such a great story, Andrew!

Melissa J. Lee said...

What a lovely story, Andrew. When I was a child, I had no understanding at all of what my parents went through to establish their lives here in the States or the massive cultural divide between our childhoods. Now that I have a son of my own, I think about it quite a bit. I like the fact that these bottles are not only nostalgic for you but bridge the gap between your parents' dreams and yours.

Andrew Thornton said...

You know, as an adult, I can see my parents as people better now. Before I saw them as "mom" and "dad" and in my conditioned mind, there were all these expectations and requisites that they had to fill. Now I can see what crap that was. I don't think that a person can really realize that until they are out on their own and deal with their own hardships before they can really appreciate their parents as humans who are just as flawed and just as messed up with just as many problems.

The bottles are just symbols. I look in the mirror and can see more symbols, written on my face, in the way I talk, the way that I laugh.

Jenn said...

I love this story and how you turned it into a positive symbol of you parents work ethic and what it meant to live here. (Folloer from Lorele's blog.)

jeweledrabbit said...

Andrew, you hit the nail on the head when you said we can't really appreciate our parents as flawed human beings until we're grown up.

Thanks for sharing that story with us.