Geoff just made a wonderful filling breakfast of migas and bacon, toast and cherries, avocado and bluberry cake. I have spent the last few days relaxing and napping (and eating).
Geoff’s parents’ friends came in yesterday for a visit (to Maine, where Geoff and I are currently vacationing) and Geoff’s mother and their friend Grace and I had an interesting conversation about posessions. The two ladies have spent some time traveling together and they were discussing some serving dishes that they had bought in France. Grace then began talking about all of the things that she has in her home in Dallas and that she and her husband talk sometimes about selling their house. She asked, “What would I do with all of my things?”. I suggested that her daughter might want them. She said that her daughter has very different style and would not want them. So, it transformed into this conversation about why we even have all of these things. Being a young woman, and I say ‘young’ wholeheartedly, I feel the urge to build a home of my own. Through collecting dishware and linens, decorations and furniture, I feel that I am creating my own life and preparing for my own family with it’s own traditions, etc.
But, it seemed very clear that by the time you reach your mid sixties, you are ready to pack it up and downsize to something charming and small and manageable. Then, what is the point of having all of those possesions? My friend Meghan’s parents has a huge old house filled to the gills with antiques. I cannot imagine that they will downsize in their retirement. So, in a way I think “Well, to each their own”. But most people do, at some point, want to to get rid of what they worked long and hard to earn.
I would like to create a balance. I will work to earn the means to buy what I love and not much more. In the meantime, I will resist to the urge to buy little things that catch my eye. And I WILL buy plants, plants and more plants.
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August 13, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Lauri Ward
Many people of all ages are downsizing, for lots of reasons. The wave started a few years ago with baby boomers but has spread to younger people who are affected by the current real estate market and economy.
The key to making it work is knowing what to take and what to part with.
Lauri Ward, author,
Downsizing Your Home With Style: Living Well In A Smaller Space
http://redecorate.com/blog/
August 15, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Natalie
This is a beautiful thought process on posessions. Having just moved into a new room myself, I feel I’ve more things than I know what to do with and instead of these possesions bringing me joy, it’s quite the opposite, they cause me a great deal of anxiety. I’m just not comfortable living amongst all this stuff…
Last week I took a day to get rid of things I truly didn’t need. It was hard and there were some things I didn’t want to let go of us, as if letting go of it would mean I’d lose that memory, that piece of time. But I did. I did let go and after I felt so much lighter, so much more free, because life is change, it’s evolution, and letting things go allows us to accept that our life now is not what it was when we picked out that bowl or scribbled notes in our college planners…
August 22, 2008 at 4:31 am
Amy
My mom likes to play this game called “What I want when you die.” She likes to sit back at the Thanksgiving table and have my sisters and I fight over her lovely things- the grandfather clock, the vases, the artwork. She gets very excited and content to hear us shout out what we want. An odd alternation between excitement as if the home team just scored and a quiet, contemplative smile on her face as she agrees that such and such a thing is so very lovely and she is “so very glad, honestly, truly happy” that we appreciate it as much as she does. What really gets her going, and usually prompts a “I’ll brew another pot of coffee” is when we all want the same thing. Kind of like a political pundit waiting and hoping for a fight between candidates.
Well, I played a trick on her several years ago. When she interrupted the nice lunch we were having with the suggestion to play her favorite game, I told her that the four of us had discussed it among ourselves, and that we decided we would auction everything off and split the difference four ways. She was shocked. Cruel of me? Maybe so, but it was a moment’s pleasure worth a million linen tablecloths and china cups.
You see, my mother has always placed a very inflated sense of these material possessions- all Victorian things like linens, china, and smelly soaps if they didn’t expire. So, she started collecting china sets to pass down to her girls. But she only collected 3 sets for her 4 daughters! And I was the one who for some reason did not have my designated set. We all knew when we were little that my Mom was buying the sets piece by piece. I didn’t mind at the time, because I somehow suppressed it that she was getting 3 ladles for 4 of us- and that meant none for me. : (
One nice thing about growing up, really growing up and getting over this stuff, is that you really know how to tease your mother, and I love mine very dearly.
She just started collecting some china for me, and I have to say that I don’t like it at all! When she gives it to me, which will probably be soon because I just got married, I will have to find a spot for it in my tiny apartment, but I will probably never use it because I really don’t like it at all.