The Story of Things

Remembering

On occasion we would have guests come and stay with us. These occasions gave us great pride as we were able to share our home, our lives and our madness with them.

You know how it is when you visit someones house and you begin to get a better picture about the owners by the things they choose to decorate their homes with. The artwork on the walls, the furniture, the colors and the energy you feel as you look around.

We had carefully curated our house with carefully chosen works of art, furniture and lighting. Nothing really matched but overall everything just worked because we had chosen things that we loved and resonated with our energy.

Furnishing a house from new one doesn’t forget the things you chose. Every light, every cupboard, every tile and every tap was chosen. Fixtures and fittings, tables and chairs, crockery and cutlery, you name it I could tell you something about it. Everything had a story and a reason for being part of our home.

We had accumulated many things over the years from items brought over from England and a lifetime of bits and pieces that accumulate as life rolled on. I could go into detail about many things but I wont. There are a few things, however, that I would like to tell you about.

Gazing Up At The Stars

As a child I was always curious when I would look up at the night sky. This curiosity only ever grew and as I learned more and more about what I was looking at. I began to read books to understand the very nature things and I soon realized that we knew very little indeed. Whether I understood what I was looking at or not didn’t matter, it was the majesty of it all that had captured my heart.

It was to my great joy that for my 18th birthday my Mum & Dad with a little help from aunties, uncles and grandparents presented me with my first telescope. Up until that point I had been attempting to use my grandfathers antique brass telescope with varying degrees of success. My grandfather knew a lot about the night sky. He even mapped it out by hand. I wish I knew where those maps are now. They were in my possession a long time ago. Update about those maps, they have been found.

This gift of a telescope meant that I could now see, in detail, all that I had only read about in books or seen on television. I would take advantage of clear skies whenever they would come along. This was not too often under UK skies.

My grandmother was an amazing artist, and on my birthday, along with the telescope, I was given a hand-painted birthday card with an image of me and my telescope gazing up at the stars. I had alway kept my birthday cards and this one was the most sentimental one for me. I believed that birthday cards held within them a special energy from the giver to the receiver. I kept them all in a drawer in our bedroom. All but the memories remain.

I wanted to write about my telescope as a way of illustrating the depth of loss that I feel. My telescope was brought over to Israel by my parents when they came to visit some 15 years ago. It was great to be reunited once again and it got much use looking at the Moon, transit of Venus across the Sun and especially sun-spots projected upon a white piece of card. It was part of who I was, an aspect of my life and a part of my history. It is good to remember these things that no longer exist. I have a renewed appreciation for being fortunate enough to have had such things in my life.