Poets' Blog

I hoard. I don’t mean to. It happens like this. Something breaks. The plug still works. I cut it off, put it in a box of electrical bits and bobs, stick box back in cupboard. Time passes. I buy a new appliance. Either it comes with plug attached, or I buy a new one ‘in case’. In the cupboard, plugs, switches, fuses and light fittings breed.

Then there’s hair. Like most owners, I have it cut now and then. Mousse, gell or protein heat-protection sun-screen sprays will be a must, even though weight flattens hair, clean locks shine naturally, I never blow-dry and this is sunfree Scotland. When a glossy mane doesn’t toss, attractively tamed, round my face because new wonder product acts like oil, starch or glue on my hair, I stop using it.

Minimalists look away now. I can’t throw these out. That’s waste. They’re almost full. So they languish in another cupboard, added to at every hair cut. Today, this matters. Number 5 son is here to finish re-fitting my kitchen. I’m asked to throw out everything I don’t use or that’s out of date. My older sister arrives – we spend a lot of time talking these days. She tells me the composition of liquids and creams alter over time. Number 1 son has come to visit number 3 son who lives here. He points out that aerosols have use-by dates stamped on the bottom. Who’d have thought?

Both are horrified. I’m surrounded by sprays, jars, and tins that probably qualify as chemical weapons by now. Hardware includes a dead iron long since replaced, a charger for batteries that no longer exist, scales on which I’ve never weighed anything, bits of obsolete things that might come in handy – except they never will because I forget they’re there or what they’re for or invention has progressed beyond the wheel. Is it poverty, habit learned from Mum’s button box and string collections, or can I not let things go?

My nephew phones to talk about Tuesday – the funeral – and to ask questions, some answerable, some not, about his mother’s last moments. Number 2 son phones to check arrangements, and talk to number 5 son who has hired a towerhouse for his looming 30th birthday to which we’re all going at some point next week – a few days away in unfamiliar scenic surroundings, with 50 of his friends. I’ll take a notepad, pens. Maybe I’ll write a poem.

Who am I kidding? I never write by hand, except for scribbled notes. A laptop, which I don’t have, would be useful. Type lets me see the shape of what I write, plus I can read it later which I can’t with my handwriting, ruined long ago by exams on too many subjects that required lengthy essays while the clock ticked. I wonder if there’s anything in my head that wants to be written now. If there is, I can’t hear it.

It’s 3am. An hour ago, I decontaminated in the shower. Outside, a promised wind is rising. The gates on my drive need closed before it does.  On the way, I’ll pass the bins. The contents of my cupboards, suitably sorted for recycling, will be deposited therein. Catharsis beckons, space, an uncluttered quietness, sleep.

Categories: Janet