As I hurtle towards my forties, I’ve found myself increasingly interested in my ancestry. It helps that mine is rather interesting, filled with characters lifted straight out of a Dickens novel.
I’ve never concerned myself much with the past. Like almost all young people I was less interested in what my fusty old ancestors were up to and much more interested in what the future held for me.
And I’ve never been a big fan of “legacy” with all the trappings that word entails. Battles have been fought and blood has been shed for those six letters — I’ve never understood it.
But like all humans, I have a need to feel part of something larger and my ancestry satisfies that itch to a certain extent.
My mother recently took a trip to our ancestral home in South Wales with two of her sisters. She’s returned full of stories of her grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles who occupied a couple of houses and surrounding land just outside a small village.
I asked her, what does she remember most about that time spent in the backwaters of hilly Wales?
She tells me she was drawn to one particular person, her great-grandmother who was one of those “characters” all pasts seem to be filled with. She didn’t speak a word of English and would walk in the middle of the road to the village because in the battle between the motor car and her, “she was here first.”
She’s correct — my great-great-grandmother was born in the mid-eighteen hundreds, well before cars would have been seen in this sleepy part of Britain.
What my mother doesn’t talk about is stuff. Aside from the houses and a few key memories in those houses, she barely remembers any possessions at all.
It makes me think about a wider point. That possessions are not the threads that connect us to past times and places.
People are.
You probably won’t be remembered for the time you bought a new iPhone. But your kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and great-grandkids might remember that time you chucked them in the pool.
Heirlooms are becoming less of a thing
I can’t avoid talking about the counterpoints to this argument here, because they’ve been swirling around my brain ever since I sat down to write.
One is that heirlooms are possessions that represent a very strong link to the past. They are tangible and unavoidable reminders of what has been and gone. When I visit my parents’ house for instance, I sit down to eat at a table that was in that very house my mother used to visit as a child.
For a lot of people, heirlooms strengthen the link to the past more than memories, not least because a table or a painting is something you can see with your own eyes. They don’t morph and distort in your mind’s eye, they are solid and unchangeable.
Second is something my mother pointed out which is the lure of houses.
Generation Rent has less room — and inclination — to take on houses and heirlooms and keep them as they were.
She may not remember much stuff, but she sure as hell remembers the house down in South Wales. The range cooker that kept them warm. The garden filled with dahlias.
These memories are so strong she’s even started to plant dahlias in our front garden — another link for her back into a past she loved.
Interestingly, I do think that these tangible memories of yesteryear are becoming less important to younger generations. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is a debate for another day but it’s a truth nonetheless.
My parents moved me around a lot as a child so I don’t have a singular home to remember. This was quite unusual for people their age but for Millennials and Gen Zs, we fully accept moving home as part and parcel of life. Gone are the days of a “forever home” for future generations to remember us by.
Heirlooms are also becoming less of a thing. Here’s a little nugget from Forbes that sums it up nicely:
“Young couples starting out don’t want the same things people used to have,” says Susan Devaney, president of NASMM and owner of The Mavins Group, a senior move manager in Westfield, N.J. “They’re not picking out formal china patterns anymore. I have three sons. They don’t want anything of mine. I totally get it.”
Whether we like it or not, there is less space for physical possessions in 2022 than there was in my mother’s world. Generation Rent has less room — and inclination — to take on houses and heirlooms and keep them as they were.
But memories of people? They’re here to stay.
Slow living is about people
Back to those possessions — specifically your possessions.
Of course, we all need some, that goes (almost) without saying. They nurture us, comfort us, and some of them make our lives truly better.
And I wouldn’t want you to live my life with only death in mind. I’d never advocate not buying stuff because one day you’ll be dead and none of it will matter anymore. That wouldn’t be a life well lived because if we think about death too much, we won’t be living life at all.
But if we acknowledge that possessions are not what one is remembered for, it begs the question — what will you be remembered for?
I want to be there for my nieces and nephews…At no point have I considered what role my possessions might play in their lives
I’m not a parent so when it comes to legacy, I don’t have kids to think about. But I do have five nieces and two nephews so my role as Auntie Charlie is very much part of my life. My own aunties had a strong influence on my childhood. I thought they were super cool and I went to them for advice on everything. I wanted to be them when I grew up.
As I’ve transitioned into the role of an Auntie myself, I’ve been very aware that I want to be there for my nieces and nephews. I want them to know they have a safe space with me to talk about anything, just as I had with my aunties.
At no point have I considered what role my possessions might play in their lives. Because that’s not what they need from me. They don’t need an heirloom, they need a safe space.
I also don’t want to be remembered as the auntie whose life was filled with all the trappings of overconsumption. Does anyone else have a family member who is really boring to visit because they’re so house-proud, it’s like sitting in a show-home? Or never asks how you are because they’re too wrapped up in some new gadget they just bought?
I know I have both.
Simple living, minimalism, slow living — whatever your bent and whatever you’d like to call it — lays a lot of this to rest. When everything slows down, when lives are lived with people and experiences in mind, there’ll be no stuff to be remembered.
There’ll only be you.
This essay was originally published at Simple and Straightforward, a Substack about living simply, slowly and sustainably.