This week I've been thinking of the time when we owned very little. Years ago our only appliance was a toaster that ran on DC current, which supplied our apartment in the South End. We had no TV and no phone. Friends would drop by. We now own a house, a refrigerator, stove, toaster, washing machine, dryer, TV, phone, CD player, computers, electric teapot, microwave, furnace, radios, and a lawn mower. Friends usually call before they visit.
Recently our old washing machine began to leak from the bottom. We replaced it. Yesterday the man from the oil company came to clean the burner and discovered a leak in the oil line. We had to replace the burner.
I know I can't go back in time but I find myself thinking about how little it really takes to live and wishing I had fewer things, though I don't want to get rid of the furnace, not in this climate. What about you? Do you feel you have more than you want? Do you live out of a suitcase when you travel and do very nicely?
Then there's Picasso (See photo of his chateau below.) For a period in his life he would fill up apartments and houses, then lock them up with all their contents and move on. Most of us can't do that, but we are accumulators who need many things to adapt ourselves to the world. A writer friend K. includes the toaster among our evolutionary adaptations, along with shoes, canes, etc. My friend A. loves to sail. There's no crossing the water without a boat. So you see I've written my way out of nostalgia.
