Like me, you may well be making a new life here in Portugal. And in the process of ‘upping sticks’, you may have had to streamline your belongings, bringing only the things most precious and useful to you. The red metal clamp I share with you today is one such example of mine that was bundled up with other tools, probably hastily, as our departure date loomed large. It formed part of my ultimate collection, the elite tool team, gathered over the years of my UK life, that had proved themselves worthy of inclusion, to be used in the creation, literally, of our Portuguese dream.
In those days, I imagined that clamp, my precious cordless drill (since retired due to ill health), and an assortment of stowable construction essentials were going to be employed in a major renovation project here, somewhere in central Portugal, but God laughed at that plan for sure.
So, it was during the latest tidy-up of my seaside, semi-detached rental home (not part-done ruin) that I clapped eyes on the vintage extra pair of hands and realised how long it, and its identical twin, had been in my possession.
Largely settled here, and content with my unexpected lot, I am rapidly re-gathering ‘stuff’ as happy humans seem to do, including an array of more modern clamping devices. In the peace and space that a pottering day can offer, I recalled in a reflective moment another time in Sheffield, UK, in the early 90s, where I purchased that matching pair of red clamps.
In the home of steel, on what I suspect was a cold morning, I parted with £1.20 for each of them, as you can still make out in what must be permanent marker pen. And, in my reminiscing, pondered further the joy of material things, in an age of anti-clutter and frowned-upon materialism that can evoke warm memories and feelings of pleasant progress.
It’s said that the best mirror is an old friend, a proposition I have always found true and helpful. And ‘things’ work equally well in this regard, if you can remember where you were, and more profoundly, who you were, when you came into contact with the thing you now hold in your hand, years later.
Thirty-five-ish years on, I still recognise myself, a man who likes making things, in a way his father never could, mainly self-taught in the art of doing it myself with carefully curated tools, old offcuts of wood and pre-loved screws that many others would have binned. ‘Bodging’, others might call it: that old-fashioned ethic of observing, conserving and preserving around the home, a way I admired in my 20s and have clearly embodied more recently, in older age, and a new country.
In my continued contemplation of this, the things we keep and that perhaps define us, it occurred to me to ask you what you chose to bring with you, to not only furnish your new life, but also to affirm your personality, personal history and sense of self – consciously and unconsciously? Which items, keepsakes, heirlooms and souvenirs did you bring, or will you bring if you are in that unenviable process, as we speak, considering each and every piece of your current life, that may or may not ultimately make ‘the cut’?
Among my personal paraphernalia that arguably informs that mirror of who I am, as well as where I’ve come from, geographically, emotionally and psychologically, are a beautifully hand-crafted wooden chair my mother gave me, a bible my father presented to me (fifty or so years ago) and a hand-thrown jug, made by Quakers in Derbyshire.
The jug was bought soon after a bitter break-up 30 or so years ago, from which a stainless steel pan also came that is in my current kitchen, near the novelty potato-masher my wife Louisa brought to our partnership from her previous relationship, and bought decades ago.
This archaeological, random and unlikely assembly became more fascinating and telling the more I delved into it. It would not, I presume, be the collection I would have predicted 30, 40 or even 50 years ago, which would have been more achievement-based accumulations and not the sentimentally-kept scribblings from all of my children, a heart-warming notelet or a golf ball my dad adorned with his marker-penned initials.
Few of these things, if any, could be purchased as they are, as new. And I never thought of myself as a hoarder; if anything a ruthless eliminator of material baggage who would make Marie Kondo proud.
Perhaps this whole retelling of my relic-based realisations is tedious to you, however, just as other people’s retold dreams or elaborate family trees can be, if you have no place in them? So, I share this more to have you consider your ‘lot’ in life, the things that define you, asking you what might be your oldest possession, but not in the antique sense, more in the realm of ‘persistence of possession’. What thing or things have stayed your course, that held in your hand today evoke another time, another you, who came a long way – changed in some ways, unaltered in others.
Whatever joined you on the journey of your life, your journey to Portugal, can tell you so much about who you were, who you are, and even who you are choosing to become, in the most delightful way. Precious is, what precious turned out to be, when you look around you and see what came this far, and what once seemed so important but is now in someone else’s kitchen or garage.
I picked out the old red G-clamps from my toolkit as the cull casualties in my latest routine round of streamlining and clutter-busting. After the nostalgia that ensued, only one will be sitting next to the dumpster later, as is the way in the Portuguese eco-system of refuse, recycling and re-use. The other, pictured, will be honoured with a reprieve, but away from the call of DIY duty and in the safer setting of my desk, to be used as a mirror.
Read Carl Munson’s previous article: “Goodbye USA, Olá Ericeira!” – Mindful migration, Old Guy style
