A gift from another True Blue, it reminds me of the day I turned 50, stomping exuberant and ebullient around a bar in Greece, swigging a bottle of Jameson from the neck, watching Chelsea win at Wembley.
In proper Chelsea tradition, this mug is also strangely defective. It seeps from the bottom.
Always has. Pick it up and there’s a little ring of dampness on the surface left behind.
Votcha gonna do?
My this, my that: does it matter?
Mugs come and go, part of a lifetime conveyor belt of fading ephemera. Worn out, broken, lost or discarded, we no longer possess much of what we once felt we owned.
Unless there’s a personal significance to an object, I see no value in owning it.
Ironically, the things that matter most to me are not mine at all. In the eyes of the law (and family members!) everything I have is rightfully mine. Yet I’m only their caretaker. They’ll survive beyond me, in the family.
There are a few possessions I care about that aren’t heirlooms. I love the tiny sea stack I was given by a dear friend, who found it while we were together on Omey Island, soon after my return from America.
Then there's the two neolithic stones I found decades ago, in a flower bed in my Salthill back garden. One is a cutting tool, worked well to a sharp three inch blade; the other a simple hand axe.
These are not mine either. I have them, but they belong to the soil, and will doubtless be returned there at some stage.
It’s okay for me to feel I own them for a while. Their original owners no longer miss them.
There is Blue Bag, my 38 year-old travelling companion, and even higher in the longevity league, my gold Parker pen, which I was given as a bar mitzvah present.
This pleases me, as those gifts given to the boy becoming a man are supposed to last a lifetime.
There’s a sentimental corner of me that loves the memory of using that pen to start writing my daily diary at the age of 15, while here it is, 47 years later, sitting beside me, and here I am, still scribbling.
Hallelujah!
Is it that kind of continuity we seek, when we try to own things?
Does the idea of owning something delude us into believing we have cheated death for a weak beguiling minute.
Maybe, but there’s more to it than that.
I have objects around me in this house that long ago travelled from London and Brighton to the west of Ireland, to California, and then back to the West of Ireland.
Far from my family in the UK, I take great comfort in seeing Gran’s tiny chest of drawers in its rightful spot, beside my desk, wherever I work.
Dark oak, with carved acorn drawer handles and perfect dovetail joints, it was handmade by a craftsman, where today some glue or a weak nail would do.
Much more than that - it’s Gran’s. My mother’s mother was a wonderful woman: eccentric, kind and always interested. Along with her magnifying glass, which sits atop my fireplace, her presence is here with me.
My Dad’s parents are here too. I found them both difficult people, yet truly appreciate the two paintings I have from their Hove flat. They bring me much pleasure.
Do I own them?
Once again ownership feels contentious. Both artists have respected reputations, but what fascinates me is not what they might be worth, (although naturally I’m curious to know) but more whether those who curate these artists’ collections know these paintings even exist.
I suspect my father's father bought both paintings soon after they were completed, and ever since they have been in our family.
Do I have some kind of moral obligation to let their estates know about these works, hung in private homes since who knows when?
Do they, in some way, belong to those others as well as me?
“What’s he bloomin’ on about?” I hear you cry. “Get the paintings valued, pronto Tonto! Then we’ll see how much he still wants to own his precious paintings!”
I’ve no children, so one day they will pass to my nieces and their children, and so it goes.
Also treasured are my father’s father’s long lens field glasses. They sit by my door in their sturdy old leather case, strung all over with romantic little silver, blue and scarlet tags, telling stories of decades ago, when Pops had access to the Members Enclosures and Private Clubs of the racecourses at Newbury, York, Sandown Park and Ascot.
During the coming Winter I will sit in my armchair, draping my old family picnic blanket over my legs.
Sitting by the fire.
Fed and housed.
I don’t own any of that, yet it’s all I need.
©Charlie Adley
25.08.2022
