I kept asking people yesterday what 7 objects they would save, if they had to have the biggest car boot sale in the world and sell all their other worldly possessions. 7 is hard,. 1 or 2 is easy. Most women said they would save a piece of jewellery, a photo, an old love letter. Most men said their mobile phone or a toolset. My husband said could his whole record collection (1.000 records) count as one thing. But after that it gets hard. How do you choose between your all-time favourite pair of shoes ( I would save my DMs with the red roses embroidered on them ) and your kitchen table that belonged to your great-grandmother. Or between your new laptop and the hat your wife gave you. Are memories worth more than possessions? Meaningful gifts worth more than useful gadgets? Wandering through some woods in Thailand a few years ago, we came across a saying, nailed to a tree:
" Hundred years from now, all new people."
Maybe it should have said " Hundred years from now all new gadgets. ( So why did you bother saving your iphone."
Out with some friends at the weekend. we started talking about times when our children were little and motherhood was new to us. And about how easy it was, in the cotton-wool headedness of sleep deprivation, to forget things. One of my friends said that when her brother was tiny, her mum had wheeled him to the shops in the pram and taken the dog for a walk at the same time. She had tied up the dog next to the pram outside a shop, bought everything she needed and gone home. After a little while, she suddenly realised that she had left the dog outside the shop. It was only when she ran back and saw the pram next to the dog, that she remembered she had left her son there too.
Onwards into tranquil (!) Tuesday.
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