Like a still lake
Ennui
I hear its melody
In this vast cold room
The nuance of the light seems eternal
Everything is simple
And I admire the
Utter fatality of objects
The servant brings
His master a bowl
In the silence of the house

Dora Maar

I had scribbled this beautiful little poem on a scrap of paper that I found the other day when I was clearing out my wallet. I recently went to the Picasso exhibition that was on in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria and although I loved the whole exhibition, it was this little poem that obviously left the deepest impression on me.

Dora Maar was just one in a long line of women in Picasso’s life, but she was with him during possibly the most turbulent part of his life – personally and politically. They were together for more than a ten year period that spanned the Spanish Civil War and World War II. It was also during this time that Picasso painted one of his most famous and enduring works Guernica.

I must stop myself now. This is not a blog about art history. It’s easy for me to get side-tracked: partly because I am a bit of an art fanatic and partly because I feel that my brain is currently in a constant state of chaos. Side-tracking is becoming my new best friend.

Dora’s poem has taken on new meaning for me lately. On a daily basis now I am weighing up my objects and contemplating their fate: ship, sell, dump.

I am thinking a lot about what makes us feel complete as human beings. Do we define ourselves by our stuff and are we in turn defined by our stuff? While I would hope I am not what you would consider a “materialistic” person, how can we, in the West, be anything else?

We are forever in a state of constant upgrading and acquiring. Where does it all end? When will we finally sit back, breathe out deeply and say to ourselves; Enough. I have enough.

Mind you, saying all this does not make it any easier to divide my belongings into one of three piles. At this point in time, mainly due to miniscule finances, for an item to be on the “ship” list it must satisfy a number of criteria, but the most important one is: do I love it so much that I would never forgive myself for letting it go? Unfortunately, I seem to have quite a few of those “things”!

It’s amazing how some objects in our lives come with so much emotional baggage. I have come to realise that it’s not just us human beings that are laden with it. The things I have set aside to sell are going like hotcakes. This is great on the one hand (less to stress about), but utterly tragic on the other.

There goes my beloved sofa that took the best part of a year to pay off. There goes the dining table that I spent days sanding back and varnishing until it was restored to its original glory. Have to stop. This is going to make me cry.

I suppose that whether we like it or not, to a large extent we are our stuff. They are a reflection of who we are. It’s an extension of our personality. And to then suddenly get rid of some of that stuff, is in effect, getting rid of a part of ourselves. It is all at once, cathartic, freeing and terrifying.

I am a bit of a compulsive scribbler. A writer friend once told me, “Never leave home without a notebook and a pen. You never know when inspiration might hit”. It was the best advice about writing that anyone ever gave me. I am forever scribbling down little things in my tiny notebook. A few weeks ago I wrote this: “As I fill my notebooks, I realise that they track a journey, a moment in time and it reminds me that my life is on a continuum – that life is not about a bunch of unrelated, separate moments in time haphazardly strung together by a thing called co-incidence.”

The journey ahead is a little bit murky. It’s a little bit scary, but it’s exciting too. I hope that in the not too distant future I will be able to stand barefoot in the grass and let it joyfully grow tall around me. I will be happy and I will say to myself...

Enough.