Clothes and going home early

 I've been writing this blog for seventeen years. One of the earliest posts, about Quietness, was written in the April of 2009. 

We had a cat called Mackerel back then. This was her sleeping, on the day I wrote that post.

As the years went by and I wrote down my thoughts, friends drifted through and went their way and came back — people I never physically met, but who journeyed with me in the stories I was writing and chatting in the comments section on my blog posts.

Not all of them are still alive. Some of them went home early. When my daughter Hebe was a little girl at school, if a child in her class was feeling unwell, sometimes they would be allowed to go home early, and she always thought it was worth being ill if that was the outcome. Accordingly, she began to think of dying as going home, and those people who didn't live their full span of years as going home early.

Someone from her life who went home early was her beloved cat Ted, who died just as we went into the pandemic lockdown. I wrote about how he went home early here. This is Ted. He was dearly loved.

The cat Mackerel also died during the years I've been writing this blog, but she didn't go home early — she was ancient. 

And now the cat Clarence has come into our lives, turning up on our windowsill the same week we moved into the house where we live now, and staying ever since. 

The first of the Kindred of the Quiet Way to go home early was Deb, who lived in Durham. Then there was Suzan who was in Australia. And most recently Emma, from America. We never sat in the same room, but we knew one another; we were kindred, we were friends. They brought me such encouragement.

I was thinking of them today when a comment came in from Becky, who has also been a fellow-traveller on Kindred of the Quiet Way, and wandered back in again to say hi just this morning. She'd been reading my thoughts about organising belongings and wondered if I had any related thoughts about clothes — in the context of considering simplicity.

And that made me think about Deb and Suzan, because those two each owned only three skirts and three tops; one to wear, one to wash and one in the wardrobe (if I'm remembering correctly). I always admired that level of simplicity, sticking with just those few items of clothing and finding it enough. 

The last week or two I've been turning over thoughts about living simply in my mind again, thinking it's time to prune out what I have, let go of some less successful sandals (fake Birkenstocks with disappointing foot support) and excess skirts that I made but always chose a different one to wear, and duplicate trousers.

And then along came Becky, thinking about downsizing and asking about clothes, and that brought Emma and Deb and Suzan back to my mind, and Ted — all the ones who went home early.

We'll find them again one day, and it will be joyous.