Other People’s Possessions
Writing Prompt: We were handed a big bunch of index cards, blank side up, and told to choose one like we would from a deck of cards. Written on each one was a different opening sentence and the exercise was to use the opening sentence as the start of your writing. I turned my card over and the opening sentence was “Mama had always had a love for other people’s possessions.” As in previous exercises, this is a mixture of real life memories combined with fiction. So here’s my writing from this prompt:
Mama had always had a love for other people’s possessions. For many years I thought this was perhaps a reaction to having to live on such a tight budget as a wife and mother. It would be easy to envy the things others seemed to acquire so easily when even new curtains must be planned and saved for; Popular Clubs run; and Freese’s Department store trading stamps put into service for years so a little of the budget could be set aside.
As Mama lay in her hospital room last night though, my aunt and I spoke in hushed whispers about how she had always, even as a child, thought aunty received the better presents, the nicer shoes, and the prettier dresses.
As we spoke, the kaleidoscope of my mind’s eye shifted. Cause and effect started clicking like an elaborate display of dominoes falling to reveal their patterns – appearing to be a new pattern while in fact having been there all along, just waiting to be revealed.
We talked about how their mother’s first husband had been killed by lightening while talking on the phone. We talked about how their mother never went further than the yard’s edge. We talked about their alcoholic father and helping their mother keep a late night watch for him to come home, in case help was needed to make the final few steps across the dooryard.
Mama has always had a love for other people’s possessions because they were solid, and a security of a sort. Surely the possessions belonging to other people were given freely and with joy and so could be appreciated. They weren’t tainted with fear and uncertainty dulling the polish on the new shoes, or tarnishing the silver that should have been gold. Other people’s possessions are a wonderful focal point for life’s bitterness and disappointments, losses and shortcomings.
Ah, how much better might life be if rather than loving other people’s possessions, we instead loved that the people who have them can take delight in them, while we focus with gratitude on the people, talents and beauty that already exists around us.
