Earthly Possessions
It is a universal truth that when a calamity like the one we are experiencing now strikes, it concentrates the mind. We think of past friendships, past loves; we see more clearly the slights we have been victims of, hurts we have caused. It is also true that we become more forgiving.
At one point I have been thinking of material possessions. They acquire a different meaning now. I asked myself this question: What are the three objects in your possession that you value most?
- My Moomin Cup is top of the list. I was married in Finland over 40 years
ago, and until that point that country only meant Suomi to me. I was an avid philatelist as a teenager, and I learnt that stamps bearing that mysterious word were from Finland. FIN is the French for the End, and to me that country was the end of the world. Later I saw pictures of blonde women sunbathing in the nude in magazines and heard of the Sauna. Gradually I read about their long-distance runners, their skiers and their champion racing drivers. But I think the most magical discovery I made was Moomin land and the Moomin books by Tove Jansson. I learnt that Tove was pronounced Toovey. Within months of my arrival in the country, I had read most of the Moomin stories and had encountered, Moomintroll, Moomin papa, Moomin Mama, the Little creatures, the frowning Little My, the Snork Maiden, the poetic Snufkin etc. I fancied myself as the free-spirited Snufkin with the poetic soul, but soon realised that I was an ineffectual Moomintroll. The red mug is my second Moomin one, but as happens the first one got broken. I have taken great care of this one. Every other day I make sure I removed the circular brown stain that forms at its base, as I want the porcelain inside immaculate white. I like its colour and the feisty Little My it features. Shortly before the pandemic a clumsy move of mind made it slip off the table. I closed my eyes and shuddered, but when I was ready to face reality, it had fallen cleverly. Unless you look very carefully you would not notice a small bruise on its rim. One just makes sure to place one’s lips some distance away. I cherish my little red mug not any less.
2. My pencil sharpener. It has been in my possession for about twenty years. It
belonged to my younger son. He has worked overseas for a number of years, and he could stack all his earthly possessions apart from his guitar in a rucksack and travel the world teaching English. Why he had bought the little machine he never said, but one year, going to Indonesia he left it behind. I have been using it ever since. He never claimed it later on, and it surreptitiously became mine. As an obsessive Sudoku practitioner I have always questioned why producers of the game chose a ridiculously small grid, so I will only start on a new game if I have the sharpest possible tool. And it must be HB. I start my morning by sharpening 3 or 4 pencils, then I settle down and get cracking. I confess that do not always finish every puzzle I start, and almost always in that case I find that the tip of my pencil had lost its needle sharpness. About a year ago, the spindle, having orbited twice round the world in these 20 years fell down on my desk exhausted by wear and tear. The thread had smoothed off and it could not be re-attached to the handle. For a while I contemplated throwing the equipment away and buying a new one, but before going to the shop I tried pushing it in and continue the sharpening, and found that a detachable spindle is almost as good as a nice screwed one. So I am sticking to my ailing little machine.
3. To me a backscratcher is as ingenious an invention as the zip fastener. It
gets to parts of the back that defy the reach of mere fingers. I propounded a theory once, which has yet to gain international recognition, that God gave humans the itch for a reason. How many people will agree that it is the second most sensual feeling one experiences after sex? Out of the blue you feel a point on your skin begin to tingle. It’s not a bad feeling. As a connoisseur, you do not immediately despatch your fingernails to the rescue, you wait for the itch to ripen for the best result. Then you allow your fingers to crawl up your back and you scratch to your heart’s content. But there is a small area between your shoulder blades, a small ellipse, which only a contortionist would be able to reach. My theory is that when God created animal life, including mankind, he built in the mechanism to generate itches, and more specifically in that inaccessible ellipse, to encourage animals including humans to find themselves partners. When a man feels that itch he calls his wife. Darling, can you please scratch my back, you know, between … So can a woman ask her husband. Even apes are known to scratch each other. I must have bought that faux tortoise-shell scratcher in a Jumble sale like 40 years ago. It has acquired the ability to go in hiding sometimes for years at a time and reappearing out of the blue. I wouldn’t value my scratcher any more if it were made of massive gold.
