Yesterday's free cycling went to great homes, the glass bowl made a regular freecycler happy, and the handmade paper went to someone who creates mixed media cards, good hands. She completely understands what she's got and loves it.
To me that's so much better than stuffed in a drawer. Someone local cautioned me about giving away too much, in case I regretted it. She referred to someone she knows in a retirement community who regrets having downsized. But I think that's different kind of person from one who emigrated from Europe with two suitcases and a trunk of books. And who three years later crossed the US to another new home driving all their possessions in a small car.
I wonder, too, if being a maker is part of it. If I need something, chances are I can make it! There are so many ways to enjoy things without owning them.
Today's poem, short enough to show, is by Amy Levy, who led a short, brilliantly talented, and depressed life. The first woman admitted to Newnham College, Cambridge, after men students had literally rioted against admitting women, so grownup of them, she wrote literary essays, novels and poetry, and ended her life sadly young, in her twenties.
This one may be directed at the woman she loved
