Keeping Records
1.
In Warrior Two position (are yoga postures capitalized?), I heard the teacher intone, “Some of us are always reaching toward the future; some of us… lean back into the past,” and I thought, “that second one–that’s me!”
2.
While we stretched, the voice continued, “Does anyone know… what’s special about… today?” And I knew the answer, because as soon as class ended, I was headed out to get in line for Record Store Day. (The teacher said something about the seasons and stars.)
3.
Record Store Day is every day for some of us. Especially those of us who lean backward. There are also denim collectors, voice-mail savers, antiquarians, scrapbookers, and yearbook keepers.
4.
Today marks two months since my dad’s death, and I still have this lovely white retail-style paper bag, with strong twine handles, featuring the blue insignia of the University of California San Diego Medical Center. For a while it held his paperwork. Then I stuck the box with my dad’s ashes in it, then I filled it with other papers–things I wanted to bring to his memorial. Now it’s holding recycling. More paper.
5.
Paper. Past. Papa. Passed. Paper. Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow, by the Rivingtons (1962, Liberty / EMI).
6.
I framed seventeen things, and stuck them up on walls. It didn’t make a dent in the piles of paper. At least the paper is vertical, so I actually have files, not piles, of paper. Like spine-out books and sideways-standing records. On Record Store Day, while driving home, I got paranoid about getting pulled over. My brain and body chemicals were so wired and wild, I forgot I wasn't driving on drugs.
7.
But that’s combining the consumer buzz with leaning back into the past. Forget records. What about the baby playing peek-a-boo, delighted to re-find the world as it was? Or the sleeper’s astral plane populated by the recent dead? I proudly threw my hospital parking receipt in my recycling bag. “There’s no reason to keep THAT,” I thought. But the hospital recycling bag outsmarted me. It’s still over there, between the records and the trash.
KEEPING RECORDS / SEVEN CENTS AUGUST 2023
