For over nine years , I worked in a children’s charity shop. Some beautiful people worked there, some eccentric and funny, some, not so much. It was a nice window into the new city.
Generally, we enjoyed the work, except for the house clearances. Id weave together a picture in my feverish brain about the lives of these people who had recently passed away, and was often struck by how little they had left. I imagined the family huddled together, trying to make sense of their loved one’s absence, the shared memories, the foibles and quirks, the innate sadness at that room, now bereft of the person they loved, now reduced to stuff. Just stuff. Items that were the essence of who that somebody was. A trinket, a photo of a loved one, some vintage clothes.
The weight hung heavy in the air. Charlotte, or Betty, or Sheila. The matriarch, dispensing tacit love, bound up in wisdom, food, brusque, very Scottish admonishments.That time you were caught smoking, or the day you upset her and couldn’t understand why. Jigsaw pieces, of a literal as well as metaphorical sense, now missing.
One day, I thought, someone will have to go through all of my stuff. Then I look around me at the tat on my bookcase: my small elephant ornaments, the doll, the disco ball, the Italian masks, the Japanese kitsch cat ornament. And I laugh at all of It. So much stuff.
Hit The North 