The Significance of Possessions

Brugge

Wye, Kent

 

Wye, Kent.

After reading about someone who had to sell their home to pay for long-term care in their old age, [not an uncommon occurrence] I got around to thinking of what it must be like to have to do that. Not that I shall be in that position I hope, but, in a faint echo of that, I have downsized considerably after leaving Bruges to move to live in Bury St Edmunds. All of this has been sensible and voluntary and I now live in a dear little flat with perhaps around 80-85% of my former possessions, disposed of. I do occasionally look for something or need something, which proves to be no longer mine! But, on the whole, giving away a variety of possessions has not proven too difficult for me at all. Indeed, I have sometimes felt a certain anxiety, an urgency, to dispose of more, to enable me to fit more easily and stylishly into present accommodation. The foundation of that feeling of ease in giving away furniture, for instance, which I have loved for years, must lie in the fact that I want to do what I am doing.

Bury St Edmunds

My Bruges home was in this building
on Woensdagmarkt.

Bruges, Beguinage.

Various treasured possessions which have made it
to Bury via Bruges and Wye. Indeed, some have clung
on since Waingroves. (see below)

Nonetheless, to finally sell house and home to finance the next, the last, stage, must be daunting. Our possessions are always more than just objects. They are part of our sense of being a person, just as our home is an essential part of our self. That is why we find it impossible to comprehend how some can live on the street. They have to, having lost everything, but how on earth do they shift, psychologically, to accepting it, understanding it, accommodating it? Incomprehensible to most of us. To lose our home is to lose part of, most of, ourselves. However, if a possession isn’t too important to us, then we can relinquish it quite easily. When I was moving to Bruges to live, at 80, I realised that there I could easily live there without a car. While in Kent, I had felt that my car was essential and being without it permanently would have been incredibly difficult, almost impossible to bear. But in Bruges, life without a car would be easy and had advantages; I did not need to familiarise myself with driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road; I did not need to locate and pay for a garage or parking space; I needed to buy no petrol or MoT nor to learn the nuances of Belgian highway laws. There was a local train station and buses passed my building nearby every ten minutes. In short, giving up my car was a blast and I did so without a qualm. So, in Brugge, a car ceased to be an important part of my life and could be effortlessly relinquished!

After talking to one or two elderly people here in Bury, I now understand that just moving house is difficult for some. A friend who has lived for around fifty years in the same house, where her sons were born and a happy-enough marriage was played out, simply cannot deal with the thought of selling and finding new. The house itself needs a complete renovation; it is large, draughty and expensive to run, lacking, as it does, a modern kitchen and bathroom or any real modern insulation. It has around eight steps to the front door from the street, and she is moving towards some difficulty in walking. Clearly, to her, the idea of leaving her long-term home equates to ‘tearing up her roots’ ; it is painful and almost literal in her case. Moving house is anyway considered one of Life’s most stressful events, at any age, and she cannot yet consider the awful prospect of leaving her beloved haven, and indeed, may never do so despite the fact that a small modern apartment in the centre of town, where she could live more cheaply and easily, would enhance her quality of life considerably. And importantly, she would be establishing her next home. She isn’t giving that up; this isn’t the final move, as it were.

Towards the end of life, moving house finally, selling up at last, will be, associated with thoughts of approaching death. And many elderly people can accommodate this with equanimity, but to gain that desirable equilibrium, one needs to feel that one’s life has had a sense of achievement. Many will find that in books written and published; art created and exhibited; successful career acknowledged and completed. But, additionally for some, and solely for others, the solid fact of a home, full of possessions gathered pleasurably over the years, in a house which is yours, to pass on to others, gives a strong and satisfying sense of personal continuity. It reassures us that an important part of us continues and contributes to the welfare and happiness of others after us, who remember us affectionately and with gratitude. Monetary value is not necessarily involved in that chair or that picture which we pass on to selected individuals; it is the fact that this, or that, treasured possession of ours will delight the new owner while helping others to remember us. And some part of us will continue after our death.

Waingroves Hall in Derbyshire with the lamp post
obtained by my mother when it was removed from
outside my childhood home in Notts.
I left Waingroves in 1983 but still, occasionally walk
through its rooms in my memory. This old hall
has been a part of my psyche since 1968 when, like Proust,
my dream had become my address.

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