Great post Alice! I found it through your sharing it on Sarah Fay's Friday Thread. This one jumped out at me because I write about objects (transitional, evocative, transformative) in relation to music. Your account resonated with me both from my own experience and from reading about the roles of obejcts in people's lives..
Oh goodness, my house is like a cornucopia of transitional objects! I have just started reading TLOTR to my boys and have decided to henceforth refer to it as a 'Mathom house'- for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwillinmg to throw away'. In fact considering these things as transitional objects makes me more gracious with myself over the fact that I have been unable to use my current and previous abundance of 'free time' to do the decluttering that is so desperately needed around here. It's as though whilst my sense of self is so tenous, I am reliant on these fragments of past selves to anchor myself in reality. Thank you for these thoughts.
Love that Emma. I thought about calling the article 'in praise of clutter' but decided that to call it clutter would be to devalue these items somewhat. I think there's usually an important reason why we're not getting rid of things. But when the time comes and we're ready to, we realise the role that 'stuff' played x
I LOVE this story so much!!! I have a draft ready to go next week about an object I couldn't let go of for MANY years, and my reasons why. I'm definitely going to be including a link to this story in mine because it's so relevant.
Transitional objects is a term I hadn’t heard before. I loved your thoughts here. I’m in the midst of decluttering & letting go, yet there are some sentimental treasures I’ll probably always hold onto.
Great post Alice! I found it through your sharing it on Sarah Fay's Friday Thread. This one jumped out at me because I write about objects (transitional, evocative, transformative) in relation to music. Your account resonated with me both from my own experience and from reading about the roles of obejcts in people's lives..
Oh goodness, my house is like a cornucopia of transitional objects! I have just started reading TLOTR to my boys and have decided to henceforth refer to it as a 'Mathom house'- for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwillinmg to throw away'. In fact considering these things as transitional objects makes me more gracious with myself over the fact that I have been unable to use my current and previous abundance of 'free time' to do the decluttering that is so desperately needed around here. It's as though whilst my sense of self is so tenous, I am reliant on these fragments of past selves to anchor myself in reality. Thank you for these thoughts.
Love that Emma. I thought about calling the article 'in praise of clutter' but decided that to call it clutter would be to devalue these items somewhat. I think there's usually an important reason why we're not getting rid of things. But when the time comes and we're ready to, we realise the role that 'stuff' played x
I LOVE this story so much!!! I have a draft ready to go next week about an object I couldn't let go of for MANY years, and my reasons why. I'm definitely going to be including a link to this story in mine because it's so relevant.
Thanks for sharing your table with the world! 😊
Transitional objects is a term I hadn’t heard before. I loved your thoughts here. I’m in the midst of decluttering & letting go, yet there are some sentimental treasures I’ll probably always hold onto.
Hi Alice, Such a lovely piece. (And I love Winnicott's work on transitional objects.)
This reminds me of a beautiful poem by Joy Harjo - 'Perhaps the world ends here.' Do you know it? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49622/perhaps-the-world-ends-here
It's all about a table.