This morning I went rooting through one of the soon-to-be-unpacked-boxes of stuff that I'd forgotten had my name to them over the last few years.
Discussion as to whether this means I'm settling down because I'm having stuff-induced nostalgia is not for today. Larry's nesting comment one fine evening so many weeks ago while he watched me bundle sticks in the backyard is still contused. (not confused, contused)
This morning while waiting for tea I remembered seeing a particularly hefty set of headphones tumble into a box of cassette tapes and CDs that I don't ever really plan to listen to, but that I might want to rummage into while changing the musical score in my car. (there is a tape of Mozart's Salzburg symphonies sitting by the front door waiting for me to notice its black shape against the black bookcase on my way out one day)
This morning while the kettle slowly rocked itself into a whistle, I rooted through the box for everything I could use so that I could stick the rest directly into the basement and cut down on tomorrow's hopefully final organizing binge. I found my headphones, my ancient-but-still-shiny discman with its own set of foldable headphones (also of great omnipresent sound quality but with too short a cord to allow me to dance with at work), a few tapes for my car - old radio shows and the like, a CD by the most overly-goth band in the universe (Radio Werewolf), and two copies of a CD with black spraypaint decoration.
I carried the white teapot, two teacups, pot of nearly-empty-unpasteurized honey, two black plums for breakfast and silver spoon on a tray in one hand, my headphones wrapped about my neck, and this strange spotted CD in the other fist.
We spent some time this morning perusing it. I remembered right the moment I came across it in the box - Eric's attempt at dealing with his divorce and the way his wife was trying to turn his daughters against him.
(His eldest, technically his step-daughter, but still a girl that he raised from infancy, hasn't spoken to him since)
Technically techno, filled with so many tiny things, executables, scraps of words, a dedication to a poem I once wrote when I still had principles, pictures, all of this immense meticulousness culminating in a REACHING OUT, filled with him, filled with the deepest desperate reaches of "one of the guys".
At the time when he gave it to me I'd skimmed through it and told him it was great and put it on the pile on top of the unused turntable.
Today I cried inside, remembering the pieces of the life I left behind that I've been shunting from direct line of thought.
I left behind partying too much and hanging out with people that only wanted my face because they thought other people wanted my face, I left behind so many false faces that I'd thought composed the majority of my social life.
I found new false faces, and a few true ones since then
but right now, oh gods right now I feel the loss of the insides of some of the greatest people I've known in all my cities, and it hurts.
It hurts because they matter enough, and it hurts because I miss them so much.
And it hurts because while I still feel their love, I don't have what I once had with them.
Right now somehow I feel as though I truly have lost touch with my family.
As oppposed to the usual state of affairs, when I just feel like I don't have one.
So I'm still coming out on top, waving my great sellout flag, and crying onto bare earth.