The vintage clothing entry was a little opaque to me, even after all that typing, but I think I’m starting to figure it out: I’m more and more suspicious of the emerging culture of no possessions as a statement against materialism. It sounds like a virtuous rejection of the world in which almost nothing is really real, the objects that surround us are facsimiles of things that no longer exist and are of such poor quality that they are rationally impossible keep or repair. But I suspect that the new culture of owning almost nothing and travelling a lot is not actually a rejection of all that; it’s a step further in the same direction. Just because you can fit all your possessions into a car, doesn’t mean you’ve done away with your need to wear clothing, feed yourself, read books, or recall your own history. So if you aren’t burdened with the basic things you need, you are repeatedly buying and disposing of them. It’s a significant step away from a world where the space one inhabits is filled with the kind of real objects that have their own continuity within the home. Those real objects come into the home or workplace (or are made there) with the marks of their making all over them and they go demanding to be touched and changed. They are worth modification and repair. The jetset-no-posessions-pretend-anti-materialist culture self-righteously popular with the “creative class” calls for stamped out, disposable objects, because of course, who can lug around cast iron or spend hours making hand-stitched repairs. Unless you are a mendicant, getting rid of everything is not minimalism or a statement against materialism. It’s the most direct way to feed a global demand for mass-produced garbage.

I’ve always wanted to live in a house populated with objects made by the people I love, but I’ve only recently realized that the personal connection with the objects around me may be the only thing strong enough to force me to live with them, instead of just banging up against them—acquiring, using, breaking, and dumping them. It’s hard to make time for objects; it’s slightly easier to make time for people.⁰¹ An object containing the physical evidence of someone I love encourages me to find a way to go on living alongside it.