Put like that, it doesn’t sound very appealing. Still, as I look around this room, I count ten items of furniture, of which five are old and five are new. When I say ‘new’ I mean not second-hand. In fact, I bought one of those supposedly new items of furniture 43 years ago. Upcycling and re-using has become a bit of an obsession and I’m starting to wonder if it’s entirely healthy. No doubt it’s great for the environment, but is it a good idea to live with so much past? Mine or other people’s?
I’m thinking about this because a friend recently sent me a passage from David Sedaris’ book Calypso in which he and his sister Amy are discussing whether ghosts can attach themselves to antique furniture or vintage clothing. Not a question I’ve considered before, but I’m prepared to while away some time wondering about it. David Sedaris, in case you’ve never come across him, is an American writer who’s spent time in France and is currently living in England. I’m a big fan of his unique and very funny take on the world. He approaches things from a different angle than most people and when you read his stories of Sedaris family life, you understand why that might be the case. In fact, I think they might all be living in a parallel universe.
I’m definitely in favour of this. I find a glimpse into another dimension quite refreshing, as long as I’m free to return to the world I know. Being a practical person, I started wondering exactly how a ghost could attach itself to the clothes it once wore. What if its clothes went to lots of different places? Would the ghost have to divide itself up, maybe in wafer-thin vertical slices, so that a very slender spirit version lived in each house? Or would the complete ghost just go round visiting its clothes in their new homes on a rotation basis?
I still have some of my mother’s clothes and although I think about her when I wear them, I’m not conscious of any other-worldly presence. I also have second-hand clothes that belonged to people I never knew and I feel absolutely no ghostly frisson about them at all. I’m obviously lacking in sensitivity, although David Sedaris suspects that he’s too self-centred to be attuned to these things and I might well be guilty of the same thing. Or just completely unimaginative.
We have a house packed with old furniture and none of it seems to carry any sense of history or past lives. Maybe that’s because much of it’s been sanded, painted, upholstered, and generally repurposed almost beyond recognition. Maybe not. I’m very fond of my desk, but I don’t think I’d waste the afterlife living in one of its drawers. Although I might follow my embroidered velvet coat around just to see what it got up to.
I like having things that I know my family have used/handled. It can be a nice connection with the past. I have a pair of shoes that belonged to my grandmother that I still wear. Any clothes I have of hers are invariably too small, she was very slim. I like to ski with an old pouch my mother used. We have tools from my Dad, all good things.
That link with the past can enrich your life, but sometimes overwhelm it! I bet you don’t have any room for random objects from other people’s lives.