My object is Don Quixote, the book, and I inherited it from my Mum.

I chose this object because as far as I’m concerned it sort of represents my childhood to a certain extent. But it also represents the taste of my Mum and what the book meant to her, and thus through her, means to me.

Erm, the book’s important because it’s one of those things that I’m pretty sure she would have given to me, but didn’t have a chance to. And so . . . it’s mine but it’s not.

You sort of have a certain level of responsibility when you have an object like that.

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Loving.

Warm.
 

Opinionated.
 

Intelligent.

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The object is sort of like she is in some way. But that’s mainly because she’ll have read it, many times and it’s a pretty good example of what she valued . . . in a book, and in an object. That it appealed to sight, to smell, to touch and it has a story beyond what was written on the page.

The main sort of sensory element to this book would probably have to be the smell; when you open up the pages and it just erm smells of libraries, and just that smell that old books have. Some people like new book smells, I like the old book smells. I think they’re better.

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I think if I could say one more thing . . . I think I’d struggle with what to choose. I’d have a sort of wide selection, but probably I’d just say, "I love you" or "I hope you’re alright" or "Goodbye" or anythin’ like that. Nothin’ too . . . heavy. 

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I think a difficult memory I have is not always, her not always being in the best of health and me being too young to sort of understand that. And sometimes that’s tough to kind of, remember. But other than that, you’ve gotta remember that she wouldn’t have minded, so I don’t think I should. 

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I mean I don’t use this enough. I’ve read it . . . once, and one day I’d like to read it again. But other than that, I’ve not overly been able to pass it on to anybody yet, but I will do.

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I wasn’t completely aware whether or not I was going to own it or not, I just always assumed that because I was a reader, like my Mum, I would end up owning all the books. But then it was a bit strange when they actually become yours and then you’ve got the choice of either looking after them, or not. But in the end you just sort of . . . hold tight to it and that’s that, all you can do. 

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A happy memory I have would probably be a very, very early memory when I was probably about 4 or 5 years old. I remember going down into a park . . . and we got ice cream, we looked at the water on the lake and . . . that was it. And it was . . . didn’t mean anything, it was just us two. And we just talked. And that’d be it.

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Over the years I’ve had various different ideas of how I was gonna get through grief, or pain, or happiness, or all the rest of them, and in the end I sort of settled on, it doesn’t really matter. It’s whatever gets you through the nights. That’s okay. So in the end I just sort of try to accept that, whilst I might not believe something, the fact that deep down everybody has that moment when they wonder about what’s goin’ on, and whether or not there is . . . something further to do with that grieving process. And in the end, that in itself, is a perspective.

 

And that’s okay.