This is a running debate. The question is: How long should you keep a greeting card?
I personally believe the sentiment has been received immediately upon reading the card, that in fact a transfer of sentiment has been made from card to brain in that moment, and that the card itself can be discarded within minutes, its fuel spent, its mission complete: sentiment launched safely into orbit.
Others, and here I mean my opinionated spouse, believe the card is to be enshrined for a length of time directly proportional to a) the virtue and perhaps b) the sheer amount of sentiment, a number of days (or weeks or months) arrived at through the application of an instinctual algebra occult and arcane.
And I ask her, how do you get to that point where *yesterday* the card retained enough sentiment to remain on display, but *today* cannot produce enough to save it from the bin? Did it spring a leak?
Maybe I've got the metaphor there. Maybe the card releases a fragrant nostalgic perfume that I, in my rough and shambling evolution, have never learned to smell. Maybe I prefer one big long snort.
I personally believe the sentiment has been received immediately upon reading the card, that in fact a transfer of sentiment has been made from card to brain in that moment, and that the card itself can be discarded within minutes, its fuel spent, its mission complete: sentiment launched safely into orbit.
Others, and here I mean my opinionated spouse, believe the card is to be enshrined for a length of time directly proportional to a) the virtue and perhaps b) the sheer amount of sentiment, a number of days (or weeks or months) arrived at through the application of an instinctual algebra occult and arcane.
And I ask her, how do you get to that point where *yesterday* the card retained enough sentiment to remain on display, but *today* cannot produce enough to save it from the bin? Did it spring a leak?
Maybe I've got the metaphor there. Maybe the card releases a fragrant nostalgic perfume that I, in my rough and shambling evolution, have never learned to smell. Maybe I prefer one big long snort.
I believe cards know their lifespan and act accordingly.
First, they are in their mantle years.* As their mantle years come to an end, they begin to wilt and seem to blow over with every whisper of a breeze.
They then mature into their shoe box years. They spend most of their life in this phase.
Eventually, senility kicks in (mine or the card's?) and the card moves into reincarnation. Like a butterfly emerging from its coccoon, the card can takes on new forms. Like collage. Or scrap paper.
* Greeting card years are like dog years---much shorter than those earth revolving around the sun ones.
And then, there are those of us whose mothers started "Correspondence" binders for them, and here, a greeting card can live on forever...
F--- (full name hidden to protect the guilty)
Oooh! I particularly like the craftiness involved in the post-shoebox stage of Karyn's cards' lifespan.
What about a whole-wall patchwork card collage? Environmentally friendly with plenty of kitsch!
I actually have to give my mother a bit of credit here (please don't tell her, it will go to head!). She is incredibly anti-greeting card, as is her mother. About 1000 years ago (maybe more) they started passing the same card back and forth for each of their birthdays. Its actually kind of cool, because after twenty years or so the card starts to burst with sentiment.