Semiotics

Once I read an interview with Umberto Eco on semiotics. Take that table, he said. To one person it’s just a piece of furniture. To another it’s a valuable antique. To a third it has been the centre of family life, and sits at the heart of many memories.

Now take this vase. To you it’s probably a perfectly ordinary piece of pottery. To my sister it was the item from my late Great Aunt Jenny’s estate of zero cash value, and therefore fit to pass on. To me it’s Aunt Jenny’s memory. Her fiancé died in WWI. She never married, living with my Granny and Granddad. She worked all her life in a local nursing home, until she moved in there herself. Today the vase holds sweet peas from our garden, smells fabulous.

A vase of memories, just like that table.