Old Bag

I had the loveliest birthday this week, though it was very, VERY, low key. As is my customary weekday-birthday, go-to, Mark and I went to the Getty Villa to see stuff.

John Paul Getty was no slouch when it came to Museums, and who doesn't love a recreated Roman Villa close to the ocean? Besides, the antiquities there dating back a couple of thousand years, don't half help to make anyone feeling a bit on the ancient side, spritely by comparison.

Time really is the weirdest of things.

Mark got me a handbag for my birthday. Our friend, Joe, makes handbags and purses from leather. He’s kind of amazing. You take him your old bag, and talk about what works and what doesn’t work. And you talk about the stuff you generally carry about with you, and what you like. Then Joe makes you a bag that looks like you would want it to look and does exactly what you want it to do. As a result, when Mark gave me my new bag for my birthday, I felt like I'd owned it forever.

It's like that with life. When something is right, it feels like the right fit.

I’m a little bit with Joe’s bags like I am with the Getty Villa as in I got a bag from him last birthday too.

Last year’s was a much bigger bag - a sleek black number that can carry all my necessities, plus room for a full manuscript or a bottle of wine. (We have to know our priorities, people.) This year’s bag is my running about doing errands bag. There's no room for a bottle of wine or a manuscript, but it's first the one I'll grab when I'm heading anywhere.

Now I have both, I’m thinking of having a big throw out of all the bags that don't quite fit. And of all of the stuff I have, but don't really use. Like shoes, I’ve worn a couple of times, but ultimately pinch my toes. Jumpers that are a little “too scratchy.” Stuff that was on sale when I bought it - though it wasn’t a bargain really, because I never actually needed it, and now I have to earn the right to get rid of it by using it - even though I never needed it to start with.

Growing up, there wasn’t much by way of disposable income, and I've spent plenty of times as an adult, white-knuckling how to get through the next round of monthly bills. Too often I operated on what I could afford at the time. And too often what I could afford at the time, wasn't really of long-term practical use, or not really what I wanted anyway.

Looking around the museum at the objects from so many different ancient civilizations, it's hard not to think how we humans are a silly little species really. Some of the work is incredible - truly mind-blowing what wee vase your general ancient Moche potter can throw together in the shade of the Andes. But when it comes down to it, though centuries have flown by, pretty much all the stuff we gather remains the same.

We need objects to store stuff, to gather stuff. We collect the sparkly and the bright. We adorn ourselves. And we do our very best to look powerful. We tell stories. We remember our dead.

We are truly magnificent. And we are temporary.

For my birthday dinner, Mark went out to collect some Greek food. Then the four of us sat round the dinner table. 16-year-old Lachlan, just back from the gym, ate an inordinate amount of chicken. Fergus, ever the philosopher, explained the difference between the Greeks and the Etruscans. I took a fair amount of ribbing about being ancient, and Mark told one of his jokes that we universally agreed had to be older than anything exhibited anywhere at the Getty.

And afterwards we ate cake.

As my friend Joe always asks when he's designing a bag: What stuff do you want and need to carry with you? And what do you individually like?

We are all only here for five minutes, people. Don't waste a second of it.

Till next week xo

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