It’s time for an update, probably well past time. To be honest, the last few days have been a tough time on the minimalism front.
It felt a little like a tease but within a few days of the new year starting I managed to lose two significant items; my primary fountain pen, a rose gold Lamy which had been a kind of last gift from one of best people I’ve ever known, who has now passed, and my only pair of non prescription sunglasses.
I have a collection of pens both fountain and ink tip, but this pen was the “ride or die” pen that went with me anywhere; because it was sentimentally important, but also because it was distinctively mine (complete with a ding or two at the top where I had run over it, (Sorry James). It was easily the nicest easy pen to write with.
I write better with fountain pens but they can be less portable. Non cartridge pens tend to leak in handbags. I had not lost that pen in years and it may yet show up…. But in the meantime I have felt guilt and shame over my carelessness but also a bit lost as to what to do when things get lost.
I had said no new pens because I have a collection of unipin pens that must not expand this year! And a mild passion for fountain pens, lovely but highly impractical for one-handed everyday out of the house use. The unipin pens are making do, but after 10 mins my arm aches and the writing becomes almost illegible even to me.
Then there are the sunglasses. I lost them at the same sort of time, perhaps together. I do have prescription reading glasses for dealing with glare from windows whilst working but its not safe to drive the chair with these on, and it’s unsafe to operate the chair in a hot summer in Australia without sunglasses. I had one pair of good petite frame glasses that were not astronomically expensive but were not cheap supermarket ones either, which never seem to sit steady on my face.
My pen and my glasses might show up again. I just had a vision of them hiding out together under a bed or such and laughing at me agonising over finding them, lost while staying with an acquaintance (so harder to turn the place upside down, or nag for that to happen). When is it safe, in my new system, to declare something as lost? As I said, I could replace things that were broken or used up that would continue to be used. This wasn’t that.
In the end, operating in the glare was causing headaches and unsafe wheelchair driving so I replaced them with a new pair of the same glasses I loved a decade ago. I also put a supermarket pair in a friends glove box so I can leave the “good” ones safely at home when I know I’m less likely to be able to exert as much control over my possessions and their movement.
That’s what I mean by my having enough but not too much seems like it might be different because of my impairment. Items almost need to be counted according to situations, not on their own. But if you can manage to get overlapping situations so much the better.
As to the pen, yes I have ordered a replacement for that too. The exact same. So it will still be distinctively mine. I know it will work well for me. It will still remind me of my late dear friend and his lovely wife, my “sister of choice”. He would be glad it worked so well and he did want it to be useful . If it shows up again I will call it the dingbat pen, in recognition of the dings on the pen that will distinguish it, and the silliness of the woman who lost it.
I think he would get a giggle out of that.