My son pointed at my bookshelf last summer and said,

“Have you read all those books in your bookshelf?” He looked at me in disbelief, challenging me as he peered at me through his fringe,

“Yes, actually yes all of them” I stuttered

” Why do you keep them then, if you’ve read them?” he continued

“Because I might read them again, because I like them” I hastily responded, somehow feeling I had to justify the ongoing presence of my stuff in the living room. He sauntered off to his room.

Why did I feel the need to defend my books, and my connection to them and their right to exist? Why was my stuff so important?  I guess the stuff we keep and cannot throw away carries personal meaning. Books contain words, that convey stories, that convey knowledge. It’s important to me. When my son asked me why I kept the books it really resonated inside me and I jumped, why did he say it? Someone I once knew insisted I store all my books in storage, books he said, were kept by people to show off and only made a house messy. I could have a shelf in the bedroom which visitors couldn’t see. Foolishly I agreed but it wrent my heart ,that all those words I loved, were relegated to one shelf and tucked away not to be publicly celebrated.

It makes me think about stuff and our attachments to it. Should I expect others to love my stuff? Should I love their stuff? I think it’s nice if you can, because the stuff you carry and can’t throw away means something to you, it’s a clue to your heart and the things that you value. But to say one’s stuff is more important than another’s, renders the other isolated from the things that show others, and themselves who they are. It also says something about the value of a person to another; if there is no space for their stuff in your life.

Stuff doesn’t have to be in things either there is stuff that we all carry inside us an internal touchstone a dialogue that we use to understand and interact with the world. Like a belief in faith or lifestyle, politics, money, class or manners. For me I still can’t comfortably walk down the street eating, the manners stuff gets in the way. When I was small my mother told me it was bad manners to walk in public eating because others who had to go without would see me and be hungry. I understand that this is my stuff because I’ve seen others eating happily walking down the street; clearly they’re not carrying that stuff.  Why does someone pronouncing the f in often offend my ears or someone naming the letter H as hach annoy me so much? It’s my stuff, the internal stuff I bring to all my conversations. Setting a table properly, waiting until everyone is seated before commencing eating these form the interface of my deliberation s in the world, this is the stuff I sometimes let go or sometimes if there are too many together I hold onto.

The thing with stuff is knowing when and what to hang onto it and when to throw it away.