BELONGINGS
T
he things I treasure are worthless.
Worthless in both financial and
practical terms, unless you’re in
need of paper weight s or door stops.
For the things I treasure are stones.
Not any old stones, mind you – most have
been w it h me for wh ile, a lt hough it ’s a ra re
trip to a beach that doesn’t find me trying to
whittle down impulse picks in the car park
before heading home. I try to limit myself
to interesting shapes (eggs or triangles)
and designs (colour blocks, white lines or
circles). Stones with holes, ‘hagstones’, are
a particular delight – if it’s hanging on a
string, it’s not clutter!
If I was going to blame anyone, I suppose
it would have to be Na in. My a r t ist ic Welsh
grandmother once charged me, aged five or
six, to bring back a large symmetrical stone
that she could use as a model for a pottery
vessel. Among a stretch of smooth dove grey
beach stones I spent an age lifting, hefting,
selecting, and so a habit formed.
I used to be furtive about my harvest but a
trip to Kettle’s Yard, where spirals of gently
graduated round pebbles adorn table tops,
reassured me. My instinct was right, pebbles
are art. In fact, they are so much a part of my
décor that a boyfriend of only two monthsWhat means a lot to you? Tell us in 500 words;
[email protected].realised the best thing he could bring back
from a US road trip was an angular red stone
from deep within the Grand Canyon. (I still
treasure the man and the gift.)
Should Marie Kondo ever drop by, I would
happily share the joy my pebbles bring. They
are tactile and weighty, infinitely varied,
solid manifestations of memory – the round
marble like pebbles from Etretat in
Normandy gathered after a funeral, a lump
of pock-marked lava from the Mojave desert
where ‘heat’ was an entity. There are mini
cairns not 10cm high where different areas
of my life balance one on top of the other.
Whitby, Tipperary, Lindesfarne and Gower.
But the treasuriest treasures, the ones I
never leave behind, hold me rooted to home.
A black droplet with a thin white slash,
unea r t hed in my pa rent s’ g a rden – a s fa r
from the sea as you can get – made into a
ring. The other an unnaturally small, almost
spherical pebble from Barry with a hole just
large enough for a thread. It’s grown darker
through wear. Not smart enough for work,
it comes out at weekends and on holiday,
There’s no better way to stay grounded.My stones
by Catrin Egan
WHAT I TREASURE