Music shouldn’t take up so much space.
These are elements of the ephemeral that should not be bound to physical formats. They are so much more than that.
I’m old-school.
Some days I want to take the school part out of the hyphenate and it wouldn’t entirely turn untrue.
Looking over the guestroom, I see a place filled with relics from the 90’s. Rickety shelving units that bow and bend beneath the weight and water damage of potted plants, an extensive CD-storage piece that has monopolized one wall for every single day we’ve been at this house. A weight-lifting rack that has seen more use as a storage shelf than actual work-outs (yes, it’s dusty, but I’m about to dust it off, I swear). And with more time than ever to spend at home, I’m finally making motions to bring this room into a new decade. With a new mid-century credenza en route, it was time to do some ruthless editing, beginning with several hundred CDs which I set about transferring to digital format. I fear and embrace change in equally-powerful parts, but for today I shall focus on the latter.
I am learning to let go. For so long I held onto these CDs, the same way I hold onto books, in the futile hope that part of my past would stay safe, would stay untouched and unharmed, and maybe somehow heal if it was just left alone. Turns out that in all this time the best thing to do might have been to let it all go and start over again.
Today I make motions to have it both ways. I will download the songs I love, and trash the rest. I don’t think I’ve purchased a physical CD in years, so this collection hasn’t grown any, it’s simply stayed the same. Stagnant. Still. Unevolved. It is time.
On this morning, I set M People’s ‘Bizarre Fruit’ on a delightful spin back to the 90’s, and I’m brought back to the sales floor of Structure, and tea dance at Chaps in Boston, and I’m smiling at the memories and emotions it brings back. The music remains, the plastic shell of its trappings can go, and the space for, well, space, has begun to appear. It is the space for growth. One shelf has been emptied, and another follows suit. I can see the wall, I can sense an expansion, I can literally feel an openness that hasn’t been there for years. Instantly, the room’s mood lifts. When the new credenza arrives I shall repot the plants that perch atop the deteriorating particle board shelving module. They will have a real piece of furniture on which to grow, and new pots to go with the mid-century feel of clean lines and minimalist structure. When the world outside feels like a jumbled overgrown monstrosity, the best thing to do is clear up the inside.
And if there’s music by M People to dance along to, so much the better.
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