It has been a strange start to the year. Do you ever have the feeling that time has sped up? Like those dreadful montage scenes in movies (New Moon, I'm looking at you) where the seasons change or the pages of the calendar riffle past or the hands of the clock go round far too quickly. I'm living in a time like that at the moment. The sun is barely up, it seems, before it's crashing down below the horizon again. Another night, another day, flickering past like slides in a slide projector. I know that I can't slow time down or stop things changing, but I want to. The last time I felt like this was in the months before we left Zimbabwe, and I think that growing up in such an unpredictable and often hostile place gave me a great gift: I never take anything for granted. I know how quickly your whole life can be erased. It sounds morbid, but is a good thing to remember. It makes you hold moments in the palm of your hand and examine them, remember them vividly.
Sometimes I think that an interest in vintage clothing is just another way in which we try to slow down the passing of time. It seems that many good, gracious and beautiful things are becoming lost as we move into the new century - and someone has to be the guardian of those things. By taking home a discarded and unloved item of clothing or a funny little object that takes our fancy, we're preserving something that was once new and special and loved: something that the rest of our culture is desperately trying to purge and forget, moving on to new and 'better' things. I am naturally very sentimental and nostalgic by nature, and I find change very difficult. Perhaps these are character traits common to all vintage collectors - what do you think? Do you recognise yourself in that description?
I'm going to try to slow down the rest of the day and enjoy this brief (if a bit pale and watery) sunshine while it's here - reading in the garden with Mink and a glass of wine.
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