Memory boxes

I shall start today’s blog with some sage advice from one who knows. When packing boxes to go from your old life to your new one, be reminded that at some point you are going to unpack all the rubbish you brought with you. Especially when it comes to items that you never used in the twenty plus years you had them or the number of books you didn’t know you had. This also pertains to clothing, video players and music. We find it easy to sell off or donate pieces of furniture that have passed their useful date but somehow we find it difficult to let go of all the other stuff. Just remember everything has to go somewhere when you get to the other side.

Having finished the apartment decor and dressing last week, the Herculean task of sorting out the boxes of ‘stuff’ awaited. I unearthed numerous books I had never read and judging by the subject matter, have no intention of ever reading. Outdated road atlases buried amongst footballer biographies and numerous encyclopaedias were repacked in favour of old classics and childhood favourites. We shall eventually have two libraries here so I can afford to be picky about what my guests here may want to read. Next came all the Cd’s, cassettes and vinyl. Hundreds and hundreds of them. I spent an entire day alphabetising the Cd collection, I lost the will to live when it came to the cassettes. Unlike the books however, these all have memories attached to them. Days of driving my first car around the winding Somerset lanes to Tony weaving his hips to a heavy Ibiza mixtape, the anthems we sang with friends and the beats no party was ever without. There are songs that remind me of lifelong friendships and those that have faded in time.

A friend asked me the other night why I kept so much when it was just as easy to load a song on Apple or Spotify. Like many, I have playlists on the these for running or for the car but there is still something in putting a certain record on the turntable or hearing the cassette click into place in the stereo system (yes I still have a working cassette player!) that makes my heart skip a beat. Books can take you to another realm but music can take you back to another time. Even if you have to wind the tape back in first with a pencil. How many of you remember those days…….?

“Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.”( Oscar Wilde)