what is it that we really need? brief reflections following the reinvention of a family home
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
We hold onto many things in this life—our third-grade reports, our fifth-grade medals, our computer-science grades, our uncle's letters, the pots and the pans, the ceramic bunnies and the glass ducks, the extra lamps and tea cups. This summer, working through the many shelves and drawers and boxes and closets and frames, the tools on nails, the orchids in pots, I reflected endlessly on the questions: What is it that we really need? What material objects mark and shape a life?
Today, following several morning hours of heavy lifting and flower arranging (and learning a thing or two about picture wire from Marie), I returned to my own modest house thinking about peace and peaceable space—the families we build inside the hope we create. My father and mother raised three children (and a cat named Colors) in this house of many years. We touched the things. We lived the life. The memories remain.
5 comments:
Wonderful, Beth. We just moved after loading a full truck for Got Junk and donating enough stuff to keep Salvation Army in business for years. Even so, we have not enough room for all our crystal and wineglasses (how many, seriously, are enough?) Grandma's china is precious, but no we don't use it. And the (grown) children's artwork from third grade? I agree we need to downsize, but memories sometimes fade, and you can't touch them...I know it's clutter, but parting is ouch so much sorrow
I agree, ladies. I still cherish much from my five children's growth and have donated so much more to Goodwill. I often thought, as the years pass, if we ever had a fire, what would I grab from the burning house, if I could only take one thing. It would be my words, my journals, in which my life--and all the children with it--is captured. Of course, if the fire wasn't too bad, I'd run back in and grab the photo albums. Thanks for sharing this, Beth. As always, you have such a way with words.
Parting with memories is hard (especially when I live with a house full of pack-rats. :-))
Beautiful post, Beth, and I just had to comment because I used to have a calico named Colors! I've never heard that name anywhere else until now. She was a great cat and I had a sad and angry mourning period when she died in a sudden car accident right in front of our house late at night when a teenager gunned down our narrow, dirt road. :-(
Merry and Victoria — thank you so much for always being here, and for understanding. Kimberley — unbelievable. Out Colors was a calico, too. I named her when I was nine. We found her, a stray, near a church cemetery in Boston. I loved her to pieces. I'm so sorry about your Colors.
Merry and Victoria — thank you so much for always being here, and for understanding. Kimberley — unbelievable. Out Colors was a calico, too. I named her when I was nine. We found her, a stray, near a church cemetery in Boston. I loved her to pieces. I'm so sorry about your Colors.
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