Personal Effects - How Little We Need

 

There’s a small box in the attic. It contains the last of the personal effects of my late aunt. Things have reduced over time. She passed away in 1998 and for many years I kept her paperwork. After about twenty years, I shredded most of it, keeping only important, historical or sentimental documents. Items of costume jewellery includes a mink brooch which I remember from my childhood. They were fashionable once, horrible now. I can’t part with the bits and pieces of her Catholic faith, her wall-hanging crucifix and her statue of Christ which was placed on her bedside table. The Jesus statue was a wedding gift from the priest, I believe. I’ve also kept a few old black and white photos that mean nothing to me, but were something to her, so they stay, for now. Anyway, that’s it. The remaining possessions of a life spanning seventy-four years, or thereabouts, neatly placed in a box only slightly bigger than an average shoe-box and stored in the home of her first niece. That could be me, one day. I think I should speak to my niece. There isn’t a box large enough for all my personal effects. Things can shrink, though.

Books, of which I have many, can be stored on a Kindle, or similar. Photos, again lots of them, can live on pen-drives. Music, my collection of vinyl and CDs can be digitalised. Not for me, though. I like real books on shelves, to feel pages and see the different prints and fonts. I don’t care if anyone calls me old-fashioned.

My house is my home. It’s not quite how I like it because I’ve packed away most of the non-essential things, ornaments and pictures, ready for putting the house up for sale. No, it hasn’t happened yet and I’m still going on about it. The sooner, the better, but there are obstacles still in the way. Considering that so much has gone into a storage unit, there is no empty space here to speak of.

Compared to home, we manage with very little on our caravan. Unfortunately, it hasn’t had much use over the summer due to present circumstances. Instead, we managed a mid-week break to a hotel in Cheshire, with all necessary personal effects for both of us, in one, middle-sized suitcase.

My Haiku,

A box in the loft
Auntie’s personal effects,
Left over from life.

Fond mem’ries remain
Which will always stay with me.
I look back and smile.

PMW 2026

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Your face is a mess

This week we're enjoying Christmas poems?  Really?  Here's a list of what I've actually been enjoying this week.  I say enjoying, what I mean is these are the things that I've done this week that, in retrospect, seem like they were worth doing.

This week I:

• Refused to try to win at Monopoly because I'm usually a Socialist and it feels like something I ought to do, at least when playing a board game with my family who actually know my leftist leanings and neither agree with them nor care.
• Found a parking space across the road from the dentist while transporting my daughter to an emergency appointment.  It was bitterly cold and town was very busy.  She left her scarf in the car, however, after I specifically told her to wear it as it gives the appearance of good mothering when she's all wrapped up.  In the waiting room there was a very small girl with tinsel in her hair.  We agreed she looked like a cyborg.  The small girl took her coat off without being asked as soon as her name was called.  I don't know if that's a helpful talent in this weather.
• Drove home down the promenade after dark, distracted by the twinkly lights.  I remembered that I love Blackpool out of season and made a mental note to go on North Pier this weekend. Two ideas for poems occurred to me during Wednesday's drive.  By Wednesday night they'd grown into first drafts. One is short and riddlish, the other inspired by Carol Ann Duffy and Malcolm Tucker. I'm anticipating editing them at some point.
• Prayed to any deity listening to let me write for jezebel.com before thanking the aforementioned supernatural beings for the euphemism 'vampire teabags' and sharing the new phrase with my sisters, thus making myself seem both hilarious and brave, or so I assume.
• Snuggled under my duvet with the electric blanket on its highest setting while sipping an Irish Redbush tea and reading.  I read a little more of The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas (as recommended by Lisa) and I read a few poems on the Poetry Foundation App.  One of these was Dirty Face by Shel Silverstein.  
• Ate brussel sprouts and I'd do it again because farts are supposed to smell like that.
• Rebelled on the Dead Good Blog.  Tell people I'm enjoying Christmas poems will you?  We'll see about that.

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