The Objects of Our Lives

Animating the Inanimate

By Devna Panda

Walking into the gift shop, I was desperate to find a useful matching souvenir for each of my roommates. I had already spent a couple hours in a few tourist-trap type stores when all I wanted to do with my remaining time in Budapest was stroll around the enchanting city for what was likely the last day that I would be there for a while. I had put off this task until the morning of my last day, but my hopes were high inside that store I had decided would be my last stop. Within a few minutes, I purchased four shot glasses that had a view of the Budapest cityscape emblazoned on them.

Those 44 milliliter glasses made the eleven hour journey back with me from a charming alley in Budapest to a college campus on the other side of the world. From a foreign object on a shelf to a staple of every night out, the shot glasses reminded me of the significance that objects carry in our lives each time I notice them scattered across our dining room table the morning after.

These glasses are not the only objects exhibiting this phenomenon. The bright red nail polish I bought from the Dinkytown Target reminds me of a time when I was searching for a tiny way to spice up the mundanity of regular life. The string bracelets with the baby turtle charm that my childhood best friends and I all bought when we visited Matlacha Island. And the outfit I wore when taking my MATH 2573 final that went well still makes me feel like I have some sort of extra luck about me when I put it on.

The objects we come to take for granted, using them day in and day out, carry so much life of their own. By being witness to the love and emotion in our life, we transform these objects from mere lifeless items to near sentient beings.