Kathryn DeZur - Objects of Affection

Kathryn DeZur – Objects of Affection

The things Kathryn DeZur focuses on—a doll, a quilt, bookshelves, a gun, an ashtray, a table, a finial—in this book of 15 essays are things that connect her to and shape her memories, which is to say that inform her sense of self, her history, her culture, the people around her. Hence, objects of affection.

She is a daughter whose father was asked by her mother to leave the home before Kathryn was 1 and who did, leaving Kathryn to live in poverty with her alcoholic mother; and so, when Kathryn was 10, she had to pick out her mother’s burial clothes after the alcoholism took her mother’s life. She moved to live with her father, to a better life in some ways but he had two preoccupations, neither of which was Kathryn. Even in this carefully constructed sense of self, Kathryn shows, things and people can knock everything askew. Though even now she regards her father as that because he fulfilled the role, he wasn’t, it turns out, her biological dad.

Before this book of personal essays, Kathryn published a poetry chapbook, Blue Ghosts, and she maintains samples of her photography at KDZ Photography on her website at kathryndezur.com.

Individual essays by her have appeared in HerStry, Dorthy Parker’s Ashes, and The Nassau Review among other places. She lives and writes in the northern Catskill Mountains and she is a professor emerita in English at SUNY Delhi.

Topics DiscussedThe relationship between objects, memory, and personal meaningHow memory shapes and reinforces our sense of identityThe ways memory can be reconstructed, incomplete, or unreliableGrowing up with an alcoholic parentKathryn's childhood in Oakland and her move to suburban San JoseChildhood experiences of loneliness, belonging, and people-pleasingHow art can provide distance and structure for processing difficult memoriesKathryn's mother's artistic life and influenceThe story behind the Easy-Bake OvenDiscovering that the man who raised Kathryn was not her biological fatherUsing DNA testing to uncover family historyDiscovering six half-siblings later in lifeThe ways genetics can manifest through mannerisms, speech, and behaviorThe significance of the essay "Nothing"The emotional meaning of home, safety, and permanenceBeing forced to leave a beloved home because of a threatening neighborKathryn's attempt to use minimalism and decluttering to regain a sense of controlWhy sentimental objects can carry profound emotional meaningThe story of Tammy, Kathryn's childhood dollThe connection between objects and feelings of belongingLetting go of possessions versus letting go of the pastFinding a second "Tammy" later in lifeSelf-forgiveness and the idea of self-abandonmentHow writing Objects of Affection became a form of reckoning with the past

Key TakeawaysMemory is creative. We don't simply retrieve memories; we reconstruct them, fill in gaps, and sometimes reshape them over time.Objects can become repositories of memory. A seemingly ordinary possession can carry layers of personal history, emotion, and meaning.Art can help us approach difficult experiences. The structure and distance created through writing and photography can make painful memories easier to examine.Belonging matters. Homes, objects, and relationships can become tangible representations of safety and permanence.Decluttering doesn't necessarily erase emotional history. Getting rid of objects doesn't mean getting rid of the memories attached to them.Identity isn't determined solely by biology. Kathryn's discovery about her biological father did not fundamentally change her understanding of who she was.Loss and replacement aren't the same thing. The second Tammy couldn't replace the childhood doll, but it could take on a new meaning.Self-forgiveness can be part of healing. Sometimes an object or experience can help us recognize where we've abandoned our own needs and begin to forgive ourselves.

“Objects can serve as places of meaning and of memory and of experience and histo