Having gone home at Christmas and spent a month going through boxes from across my life has given me a lot of food for thought about stuff. I try desperately not to collect, but it is so much in my nature and background that I think it is inevitable. My parents have so much stuff in their house that the rafters are full and they keep finding new nooks and crannies to hang/store stuff. One day it will be my brother's and mine to go through, but what is important to us is never as important as it would be for someone else.
My friend's very thoughtful blog entry about packing up her house here in Bogota was poignant and an interesting take about things passing from generation to generation. http://noessinomivida.blogspot.com/2014/01/letting-go-things-you-take-with-you-and.html
I particularly liked her comment about not burdening future generations with your own hangups, although this is definitely not a comment on my parents things -- many of which I love, although I do know that there is an awful lot of them!
Yesterday my parents told me they had collected all the National Geographic magazine collection from the family farm to bring home. I rolled my eyes and laughed -- they have an enormous collection of their own! They now have some dating as far back as 1939 or somewhere thereabouts, and many copies of ones they had of their own, mostly dating from the 1960s. They loved going back through them to admire articles of certain places and certain times, which gives them value to all.
I also just saw this very interesting photo exhibition: http://www.featureshoot.com/2014/01/photographer-memorializes-her-grandfather-through-objects-he-left-behind/
It shows the simple things in life that we collect and that mark our time but that have reduced meaning once we're gone. Photos are a nice way to remember it without having to actually keep the stuff itself.
My friend's very thoughtful blog entry about packing up her house here in Bogota was poignant and an interesting take about things passing from generation to generation. http://noessinomivida.blogspot.com/2014/01/letting-go-things-you-take-with-you-and.html
I particularly liked her comment about not burdening future generations with your own hangups, although this is definitely not a comment on my parents things -- many of which I love, although I do know that there is an awful lot of them!
Yesterday my parents told me they had collected all the National Geographic magazine collection from the family farm to bring home. I rolled my eyes and laughed -- they have an enormous collection of their own! They now have some dating as far back as 1939 or somewhere thereabouts, and many copies of ones they had of their own, mostly dating from the 1960s. They loved going back through them to admire articles of certain places and certain times, which gives them value to all.
I also just saw this very interesting photo exhibition: http://www.featureshoot.com/2014/01/photographer-memorializes-her-grandfather-through-objects-he-left-behind/
It shows the simple things in life that we collect and that mark our time but that have reduced meaning once we're gone. Photos are a nice way to remember it without having to actually keep the stuff itself.
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