Here in Maine the nights are getting longer, the days are getting colder, and the tourists are virtually gone, just how we like it. Linda and I live for the quiet season, especially given that our home is at an iconic lighthouse visited by tens of thousands each year. And with the holidays officially upon us, we are taking stock of our manifold blessings.
I got the title of this post from a quote of Abigail Thomas in Thinking About Memoir, “A lawyer tells me that when writing your will, the legal term of one’s possessions is ‘the natural objects of my bounty.’ How lovely that is, implying nothing of getting and spending, nothing that smacks of commercialism” [emphasis mine].
Linda and I wrote simple wills several years ago before I made a couple of trips as a journalist to a dangerous part of Africa for which the State Department issued travel warnings. And as converts to minimalism, we have since drastically downsized our possessions in the meantime. So suffice it to say that our loved ones do not stand to inherit much in the way of stuff.
But what we are very rich in is intangibles like simple pleasures, experiences together, and the associated memories they engender. I am immeasurably blessed to be married to my best friend and Linda feels the same way about me. What with the Christmas season quickly approaching we strive to remember its Reason rather than caving to the commercialism of it. And you?