We still cling to things

IT COMES down to ‘‘things,’’ in the end.

We spend our lives ac-
cumulating that which does, or
will, serve to identify us in our
own particularities. And there’s
more than just identity involved
— it has a lot to do with security
of status, too.

The wry bumper sticker says it
all: ‘The one who has the most
toys when he dies, wins.’”

It’s no small triumph, then, to
come down to the wire in your
altogether, serenely and coura-
geously declaring that you,
yourself, this marvellous old per-
son that you have become, at last
can carry who and what you are
in head and heart alone, without
benefit of impedimenta.

You’ve come this long way and
have accepted the sum of all that
living.

Not expecting much about
yourself to change, now, philo-
sophically speaking.

Inevitable physical deterioration
will find you puffing on the hills,
and being magnificently boring
with your reminiscences. But you,
your commitment to principles, all
the important part is pretty well
set in stone.

This is the time, then, when
deciding on more practical
premises is most therapeutic. You
have a chance to shed the trapp-
ings and get clean away. It doesn’t
mean living like an anchorite in a
-cave, just jettisoning the extras,
acknowledging that simple living
frees you up to be yourself at last.

What a relief.

Or is it maybe unsettling?
Who-am-I time?

I wish I could say I’ve ac-
complished it myself, that I’ve
come away free, that this fifteenth
hegira has whittled us down to
bare bones. Not yet. Less en-
cumbered, yes, but one still clings
a bit, to things given, bought,
earned,

They matter little in themselves,
but represent the giver, or the oc-
casion of giving. The little whitd-
ed fisherman from New
Brunswick; the ash-tray, long
unused, but bearing a handsome
outline of a frog totem; the
Kokeshi dolls.

Certainty collections of memo-

- bE

ad

Eleanor
Godley

THE VINTAGE YEARS

ries are less intimidating than col-
fections of birds’ eggs or Dresden
ladies.

Obviously there is still some
distance to go to achieve the
desired nitty-gritty. The blame
can clearly be laid at the door of
our children. Time was, one was
expected to unload on to the
young, starting out and up.

These revolutionary days leave
us holding the well-known bag.
The children speak only techno-
logy and transfer their horizons to
space, far beyond the limits im-
posed by possession of gravy-
boats and tureens.

The signal of my own
callousness was the ease with
which I discarded all the elaborate
party equipment. At this age
entertaining is an abandoned art.
The spring-form pans, the
massive platters, the salmon
poachers — never again.

But if one is serious about
casting out the superfluous, why
stop at the kitchen? Why not in-
clude the bookshelves?

Because it’s always been un-
thinkable. The books, the pictures
on the walls, they’ve always gone
in toto, they’re part of life’s in-
dispensable baggage, they define
taste and measure breadth, don’t
they?

Maybe. Until you’re old.

Then you hear the doors you’ve

Me AND STEAKS,

’ Prepared, the only way’ they sould: bes. :
2 Cover an open alderwood flame. ,

come through gently closing
behind you, and you know you're
not going to re-read Jose Ortega
Y Gasset’s ‘‘On Love,’’ or Emer-
son’s Essays, or all of Rebecca
West. Keeping them is a form of
sentimentality, not a brave seeking
after the secret of life. They’ve
become icons, in a way.

The line’s been crossed.

Some of mine refused to comp-
ly. Alice in Wonderland just
wouldn’t let go; The Chrysanthe-
mum and the Sword may have
something more to say in these
times of Japan’s revitalization:
Alice Munro, well, she sees very
clearly and one can surely learn
from that even now, maybe even
better now. And Man’s Fate? and
The March of Folly? They just
might possibly need ripeness of
years to get at the whole message.

As for the art, it remains intact,
no weeding contemplated. It’s all
here, in the new place, waiting for
yet another hanging, to catch a
different cast of light.

Detaching is a tough process.

Sunday, March 1, 1992 - North Shore News

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