Things I love
Why some of the best (and worst) things in life fit in the palm of my hand
Only one of these cats needs feeding and de-fleaing
What I would really love for Christmas is a donor egg match so my boyfriend and I can get on with trying to make a baby. Aside from that? Some good towels, a pair of expensive knickers and a red lipstick that doesn’t make my teeth look yellow. Also, some photos that other people have taken of my kids that I haven’t seen yet.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to be in the moment. I write this after a night of ill-fated scrolling. A night when I could have soaked in a bath, could have watched a film, could have called a friend or written a postcard. Instead I lay in bed, fully clothed, glued to my phone till 1am. I now understand how certain phrases come about, because the word glued suggests an inability to separate. And that’s just how it felt for me last night. I could not put my phone down, despite feeling heavy regret as I scrolled on and on, watching the minutes and hours disappear.
Wow, modern life can truly suck. What did I do before I had a phone? I think I did a lot of lying in bed, as I do now, thinking of terrible things I’d done, or have yet to do. But those thoughts weren’t supercharged by a hot, throbbing device that could give me access to billions of other people’s lives. Yes, a phone can fit perfectly in the palm of my hand but I most certainly do not love it.
So to things that I do love. A couple of years ago my boyfriend and I had reached the point in our relationship where we had to decide whether to make a lasting commitment to one another, or call it quits. Those crunch-days were painful. If we stayed together I’d have to consider having another child because that’s what my boyfriend wanted. And he’d have to consider that maybe, even if we gave it our all, a child wouldn’t be possible. I went to Camden Market with my younger son during that decision-making time. He bought matcha green-tea Kit-Kats that tasted of vomit and I picked up a small pink Japanese maneki-neko porcelain cat. I was told by the shop owner that it represented love and happiness. Perfect, I thought, for my predicament. I had love and happiness with my boyfriend. Days later we both chose to hold onto that by making a plan to move in together.
This little cat now lives on a shelf above our bed. I don’t believe it has a supernatural power that keeps us together, but I wrap my hands around it during periods of uncertainty. It is a solid object that helps to bring focus to what I am feeling. It’s hard to find clarity like that when I’m scrolling, scrolling, scrolling on my phone, lapping up any old crap that is being fed to me by a cruel algorithm.
Recently I was given a gold-handled butter knife by my good friends. My elder son has fallen in love with it. So much so that he uses it to butter his toast every morning. He, like me, realises that certain objects can bring great joy to an otherwise ordinary moment.
Other things I love: a chunk of rose quartz crystal my daughter gave me. Not for its supposed healing qualities, but because of its beautiful pink colour, its pleasing heft and the way it cools and irons out the kinks in my forehead after a hard day.
I’m not a lover of loads of clutter. I’ve seen my mother try to counter my father’s shopping addiction. She spends a lot of time getting rid of stuff, usually when my father is away. My parents have had to build an extra barn to house the many objects my father’s collected over decades. These include a Victorian bath chair, several pairs of bolt cutters, and bikes of all shapes and sizes, in case several house guests want to go on a bike ride at the same time (this has never happened). That’s why I like photos, small paintings, or special little objects that don’t take up too much space; things that feel good, or help to cultivate good thoughts.
I’d love to hear about the things you love that can fit in the palm of your hand.
My dog's paw, my tangle ring for stimming, seashells, igneous rocks taken from holidays where there were volcanoes present, autumn leaves that I collect for collaging, many forms of nuts including; cashews, almonds, walnuts and pistachios, a juicy and weighty pomegranate. This is what comes to mind for now :-) thank you for the invitation to consider this.
A LAMY fountain pen, a can opener that actually works, a large flat pebble collected on a wintery beach walk, this odd palm sized wooden humpty dumpty type person (rather similar to your japanese cat), my wedding ring that I found in the bedside table of my great aunt after she died and adopted and gave to myself at the time of my engagement, a Terry's Chocolate Orange and a cold clementine both from my Christmas stocking opened under sage coloured bed linen from Bed Threads.