My house is full of stuff. Or rather, our house, mine, the husband's and the cat's. It's an Aladdin's cave of colour and texture, a tapestry created by years lived the same place and a multitude of things bought. There was a short story/novella I read a few years ago which equated a character's living space with the inside of an oyster shell, being lined over the years with things considered beautiful. A thickening of the walls by stuff, slowly making the space within smaller. I think it was The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind.
When we first bought our house, before we moved in, every room echoed. It sounded like a big, lonely, soul-less space. It's strange to think that all our furniture, clothes, DVDs, games, music, books, comics and clutter have taken that echo away. It's made our house sound like it has a soul.
But Tyler Durden doesn't like stuff, he said that the things you own, end up owning you. The things we own certainly restrict our choices; a mortgage does necessitate a full time job rather than a career as a drifting surfer - not a dream that I have by the way. Our recreational time is shaped by the things you choose to own. On days off I have an abundance of choices of which book I read, which DVD I watch, which game I play, which of the computers I use to write on - although to be fair, there are two which I don't think could be used as anything other than doorstops.
But there are things that I have that have little function and some of them are there because they are beautiful and some are there because they are a memory made solid. They are things given or found, bought and in a few instances stolen, that embody a place or person, usually gone or too far away to be part of daily life. They are objects that make my heart ache or my memory sharpen when I look at them. They are memorabilia from the life that has shaped me.
If something were to happen to them, I would mourn their loss, but life would go on. But I can't deny that they show me who I am.
They own me.
I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one.
I have an idea about writing a series of entries detailing these reflections of my soul, the memories that they evoke, with a photograph. I'm not sure if I want to do this so that I can understand their hold over me and decide if its healthy; or if it's in case I lose them, so I have a memory recorded.
I guess that's what a lot of writing is - remembered memories. Emotions and thoughts scrawled across paper and screens so that we can remember, even when time and tides have erased all but a lingering whisper of faces and places.
A way to remember who we are and share that with others.
If we are owned, maybe it's because we choose to be and we choose to remember who we are even when the world that shaped us has gone.
