Things

 Things 

A letter from my (dead) sister, Moira.

Dear Ted,

In your alternate universe, I ran away to Spain and Morocco and one of them saved my life. [See here and here.*] I wish I had and it were so. Why I didn’t - that’s for another time. Maybe.

     This time I’m thinking about “things.” (And Hannah. [See here.] Though I may be worrying about you, too.) Why I’m thinking about things, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the “topic,” at least not personally. But when has not knowing stopped anyone from venturing an opinion, thinking she is a philosopher.

     We acquire, I believe, out of attachment to place. We want a place. Eventually, we buy a nice house, and we want to stay there. In that place. Then we weight the house down so it won’t fly away from us. Beds for the bedrooms; chairs and couches for the living area; a huge dining room table that will extend to seat a dozen; plates, cups, glasses; pots and pans, especially good for ballast. Marble countertops.

    This attachment to place has to do with security. For reasons - not very good reasons, but we’re convinced I don’t know why - we begin to see the world “outside” as a dangerous place. So we want to have everything we might need inside. Then, if we decide we don’t want to, we don’t need to go out at all.

    Do you agree? You don’t have to, but think about how disconcerting it is to you, how worried you get about going anywhere new - you might get lost.

     So, could you have run away to Spain or Morocco if you didn’t know how to get there - turn by turn how to get there?

                                    Love, Moira

01.08.20

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 * And for more, all the Moira links, see here.