While I sit in my chair I look around me. One by one I observe the items I decorated the room with. The green curtains I once bought at Jysk, the cupboard my daughter no longer wanted and a friend transported for me, a side table she once had a fight about with her ex, the Samsung tv that was a present for the children but we rarely switch on, a small Spanish cabinet that once belonged to the aunt of a colleague, and the table and two chairs I bought second-hand over twenty years ago. In some way these are all treasures and it's all precious to me mainly because there's a story behind it but if I leave what would I take with me?
All those books or my favourite mug? The mug that isn't a beauty but I like because most mugs don't feel great to my mouth if I drink out of it. The old stove or the the collection of DVDs?
I already gave away a lot. Furniture, clothes, the photo albums, diaries, books, records.
During my life I bought so many things but there's nothing really close to my heart if it comes to items. I bought so much and left behind even more, started many times allover again. I am not attached to anything really. No jewelry or photos I would like to keep if I leave I will leave most of it behind. I will wear a set clothes and the other set I might take with me, together with my 'weeping Buddha' and who knows a few books and the small partly broken alarm clock once belonged to an elderly lady who died.
At times we discuss what we will take with us if we move out. Most likely it will be what fits into the car. We will puzzle and walk through the house a billion times to figure out what we need for real. All we have can be replaced, most of it can and if not we find a way to get used to a life without.
Items... They are just things and are precious because of the feeling we add to it. Perhaps that aunt hated the cabinet just like my daughter did with her cupboard and side table as she started a new life.
Items can be replaced and it wouldn't be such a bad thing if we could do the same with our feelings. Those feelings of being lost, lonesome and hurt.
What will I take with me if I leave, what is a treasure to me? What is valuable enough? My eldest wolf is but he is not an item. I would take him and if that's not possible stay till he died.
I try to remember if there was anything ever important to me but I don't think so. Of course, there were items I once owed and liked like the antique box. If I opened it it was a small secretaire, one you could keep on your lap. I was not allowed to take it with me as I left what once was home. At times I miss my collection of photo cameras. My child would have been happy with it today but it's all gone and I went on.
My waterbed is important to me. It is the only item I took with me as I moved into a smaller house. It fills half of the bedroom, a room I share with my youngest. A room without room for a wardrobe, desk or even a chair. Can I do without it? If I have to I can so what is left?
I think my phone is. It is the only treasure I have. It's my desk, photo camera, library, mailbox and window to the world outside. How banal it may sound but today my smartphone is my biggest treasure.
My grandmother once said, "you don't need to give me anything I can't take it with me into my grave". Items were not important to her. She had lost most of it before, during and after the war and knew what is most precious are those memories in your head.
