The substance of home

I don't remember why I was running that night, or what I tripped on and fell over. I remember only hitting the edge of this table, the cut on my chin and the bright blue of the wall I looked up at as I landed. My mother rushing to the doctor, and the faint scar on my chin that remains. Today, the table itself feels like something of a miracle. It's survived over twenty-five years, 10 moves across as many cities, two continents and an earthquake. I run my fingers over the edges and try to recollect being just that high, to land with my chin on that edge.

There are whole shelves everywhere, filled with the things I have gathered over the years. An old fishtank, overflowing with the toy ducks and penguins and snakes I collected. A rabbit, two interlinked bears once named Coffee and Toffee, and Maggie Ann perch on top, guarding the lot. High-school biology notes. French class books, old letters and birthday cards.. the list is endless. None of it is particularly aesthetic, most of it would be easy to classify as clutter.

That stuff that gets tossed out when you move house, sweep away dust bunnies. I, and most other 'intellectuals' I know, would like to think of ourselves as detached, these things as just material possessions- dispensable, and in some ways, deserving of disposal, as proof that nothing holds us back, ties us down to a place. When we leave, we pick up the 'essentials' and walk out. A few more aesthetic individuals would be so very disdainful of these shelves- There is one that seems to be exclusively dedicated to the extremely tasteless vases I once had a habit of gathering. A pointy shoe, a green face, a pink flowered vase, and a sheep. Ugh.

But the green face was bought for a laugh, the sheep was a gift from a friend when we were ten, and the vase, to six-year old eyes, was a thing of beauty, worth saving my pocket money and buying for my mother's birthday.

What strikes me is how my perspective has changed. Those things were preserved with sheer emotion, no thought of color schemes or price, of minimalism or theme or good design. As an adult, when I visualise my house, place my things, I want no part of the unaesthetic. If it doesn't fit, it must be tossed. Things that don't look lovely are left behind. As so many others do, I go out and buy things that fit color schemes and lighting plans, that are considered good design and reflect my personality.

Here, none of those matter. The only thing that holds this clutter together is love. The things on these shelves don't reflect my personality, just the events that shaped who I am. Pick any one of those ugly, mismatched, cheap objects, and there is a memory that justifies its persistence. More than my perfectly matched blue shelf, blue couch, and the array of hand bags that I never remember to coordinate after buying them, this is the substance of my life- the inexplicable love that sees what is important to me and holds it safe, waiting for me to come home and rediscover joy.

I'm re-thinking, now, what I want in my home, what I hold dispensable. If you had a choice, what material possessions, apart from photographs and heirlooms, would you consider essential?