Though I was also getting new things I continued a tradition, started late the year before, of using old things.
Now it was shoes. I had one old pair (pictured in last year’s memorial) and started wearing two other pairs I’d not worn for at least a decade. On the second Thursday in January I used restorative shoe polish (bought in December) to clean the shoes (shown in the photo below, which was taken on the same day in the hallway of a building I had occasion to visit) but the heels began to disintegrate not long after and I threw the shoes away.
I started, last year, to reuse a lot of old clothes, and this year I had a few other things repaired, including shoes. Upon relocating to Queensland in 2009 I had gravitated away from wearing lace-ups and in many of the years since I wore sandals even in winter due to the climate. Once I moved back to Sydney in 2015 I started again to wear socks and shoes (though slip-ons). But a pair of old lace-ups disintegrated in March and I threw them out. They were the second pair of shoes that had to be dealt with in this way due to perishing materials.
On 5 June I drove to the Broadway Shopping Centre and bought long underwear – in two sizes, as I didn’t know which would fit me – and the next day wore long johns in the morning. I also put on a sloppy joe under my cardigan. I wanted to find a way to stay warm without using the heater (not only does it cost money to run, it gets uncomfortable after a while with all the dry air swirling around the room). I thought long johns might do the trick, a surmise that turned out to be correct, so while in the city later in the same month I bought more at Uniqlo.
I also bought more stuff online, for example on Saturday 20 June when I went to the Myer website and bought two pairs of trousers and three long-sleeve shirts. Some of my shirts had started to fray and wear. Both these pairs of trousers I took to the tailor’s on Harris Street to get them shortened. I picked one pair up on the same day my apartment was styled prior to sale, and one pair on the day of the second buyer’s inspection.
In September and October I bought some shirts from Vinnies – very cheap at about $16 each. I also bought, this year, shirts at Blue Eyes in Lakemba – where they cost between $10 and $15 each.
Due to a diet, I began losing a lot of weight in the final quarter of the year. By this time I was living in temporary accommodation in Glebe as I was between my old home and a new one being constructed and certified elsewhere. The Glebe unit had a dual-mode washing machine (wash and dry in the same appliance) but after running the dry mode you still have to hang items out in the air if you want them to dry sufficiently to enable you to put them away. Building managers provide racks for this purpose.
I was losing about five kilos each month but progress was both slow and steady. In December I was still wearing the same pants as I’d always worn, but my belt was on a different notch – number five instead of number two – and my pants fit loosely enough for me not to have to pull them tight in order to make them stay up when walking. Prior to the weight loss it’d been a problem to keep pants above my hips in the street. I’d gotten into the habit of cinching the belt really tight to stop them falling down while out and about.
When I got around to unpacking my clothes following the home relocation – even before I’d moved in I put all my stuff into the new house with the help of removalists – I registered the old pants I still had in my collection. Pants I’d been unable to wear for a decade. Now, I thought to myself, thinking of a time in the not-too-distant future, I’d be able to use these old things again, and this thought gave me an inordinate amount of pleasure. Just contemplating this scenario – putting on a pair of old pants, unused for ten years – all that time sitting in the cupboard in Campsie or Maroochydore or Pyrmont – gave me a kind of joy that Marie Kondo recommends as a palliative for the routine of modern-day consumption.
But from an opposite source. Being able to conserve instead of rejecting. Being able to keep rather than throwing away. Being able to maintain intact rather than disrupting. Not having to acquire anything new as part of an endless process of renovating existence, as though the old were a source of shame rather than, in essence, of wisdom and strength. This was a welcome novelty, and on Christmas Day I wrote something to put up on Facebook that touched on all these themes (consumerism, the festive season, renewal):
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The first Noel the angels did sell
two kilos of ham and a cheap ringing bell
to place on a tree with celebrant right
like a full stop at the end of the night.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
born in the shadow of Israel.
In malls where they come to purchase a clock,
or a new trendy garment that will really rock
for their sister or friend as cash goes away –
frictionless transaction with Afterpay!
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
scorn for the hero of Israel.
At the Boxing Day sales they throw credit cards down
as the kids slurp up Fanta and – look, there’s a clown! –
watch for RBT pockets on the way home
with the boot full of parcels like Xmas has come.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
worn out like a new Israel.
In the old city the lures of surfeit come to pall
as tourists ignore ceramics saying “Shalom y’all”
while they flock to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
on every day of a normal year.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
what comes today from Israel?
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Keeping ham in the fridge for the rest of the year might be problematic – it’d go off and poison you if you then ate it – but I was disappointed by the constant echo on the news about how retail trade was surging with the end of lockdowns at the end of the year. It seemed as though – apart from the obligatory TV address by the archbishop of Melbourne, or the Queen – we’d got stuck in a rut inherited from the rest of the year, and had forgotten the meaning of Christmas. It’s almost laughably trite to say this, I’m aware, but because of mum’s absence I was feeling sensitive on the day I wrote this set of verses.
Not everything was in stasis. All the spare socks I’d bought earlier in the year – not specifically registering those purchases for this post is a source of regret – came in handy in November and December as some old ones finally wore out – I keep clothes until they’re falling apart and, in the case of trousers, will take worn pairs to the tailor’s to be repaired before deciding to throw them away in the garbage. The socks were the short type (having no covering at the ankles); using this sort is better for me because of my psoriasis (they’re also easier to put on).
I bought a dressing gown in October and used it while living in my friend Grant’s house, but of course once I’d moved to Glebe it just sat on the carpet. Later, when I moved to stay with friends in Wollongong – the lease on the Glebe place expired and I’d had to move out – I again used it. The garment is blue with a printed pattern of little squares – a lighter tone and a darker one alternating on the cloth. It has pyjama bottoms as well in case you want to wear pants to bed. I normally sleep in just undies – it’s comfortable and I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember – but the dressing gown ensemble did the trick when I was living in close quarters with other people and I needed to get to the bathroom each day to have a shower.
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