In Defence of Loving Your Things

I have a shelf of teacups. None of them match. Several are chipped. One has a hairline crack that means it can only be used for very small, very careful cups of tea. I bought most of them at flea markets for almost nothing. Two belonged to my grandmother. One was a gift from a woman whose house I read, many years ago, who pressed it into my hands at the door and said, "You should have this."

I love every one of them. I have decided I am not going to apologise for that any more.

The age of the empty shelf

At some point in the last few years, loving your things became slightly embarrassing. We were told that possessions weigh us down. That the enlightened home is a sparse one. That we should keep only what is useful, and give away anything that does not earn its place.

There is wisdom in some of this. Most of us do have too much, and a house choked with objects we do not care about is a heavy house to live in. I have seen many of them, and the relief when some of it goes can be enormous.

But somewhere along the way, the baby went out with the bathwater. We started to feel guilty not only about the things we did not love, but about the things we did. As if attachment itself were the problem.

Gathering things you love, without apologising for loving them, is one of the oldest kinds of magick there is.

Objects that carry us

Here is what I believe. Some objects are not merely things. They are carriers. They hold memory, meaning, and a kind of quiet presence that changes the room they sit in.

A chipped jug from your grandmother's kitchen is not just a jug. It is a thread back to her, to her hands, to the kitchen table you sat at as a child. A stone picked up on a beach in the summer you fell in love holds that summer inside it. A book with someone's handwriting on the flyleaf is a small shrine.

Our ancestors knew this perfectly well. They kept keepsakes, lockets, samplers, the family bible with the names written inside the cover. They understood that the objects we gather around us help to tell us who we are.

How to tell the difference

So how do you know which things to keep, and which to let go? I do not believe in rules, but I do have a few questions I find useful:

• Does it make you glad when you see it? Not dutiful. Not guilty. Glad.
• Do you know its story? Objects with a story tend to earn their keep. Objects you cannot remember acquiring often do not.
• Is it being used, or looked at, or held? Loved things want to be part of your life, not hidden in a box in the loft.
• Is it yours, or someone else's? We sometimes keep things out of loyalty to someone who would not have wanted us to. Their love does not live in the object. You are allowed to let it go.

Give them a place

The second part of loving your things is giving them somewhere to live. Clutter is often just beloved objects with nowhere to go. A shelf, a cabinet, a windowsill, a bowl on the hall table. Somewhere they can be seen and enjoyed, rather than piled up.

My teacups live on a narrow wooden shelf above the kettle. I see them every morning. I choose one depending on my mood, and on the weather, and on who is coming round. It takes perhaps three seconds. It is one of the small, ordinary rituals that make this house feel like mine.

A little permission

If you have been made to feel that your love of your things is a weakness, I would like to offer you some permission. You are allowed to keep the chipped cup. You are allowed to display your grandmother's china, even though it does not go with anything. You are allowed to have a cabinet of curiosities, a jar of sea glass, a wall of mismatched frames.

A home is not a showroom. It is a place where a life is being lived, and lives leave traces. The Holy Hedonista in you knows this already. Let her choose a teacup this afternoon, and enjoy it without a trace of guilt.