June 27, 2009
Collecting
Daryl’s remembery, sparked by Phil’s post, really got me. It really got me. Now.
I was a girl version of the guy Daryl knew. Kind of a freak. Imagine the self projected by Harvey Pekar way back when. Turn the boy into a girl, and you’ve got someone like me.
Eleven years ago my record collection, stacked in storage, was lawfully seized on account of a couple of months of unpaid rent. My book collection, my family photographs, years of correspondence — all gone as well.
When the shock wore off, I curled into a fetal position and maintained it for a couple of days, breaking the posture only for the occasional banshee howl.
Long ago, I came to accept my dispossession. The experience had an interesting effect on my work as an archivist.
What strikes me funny just now is that one bit of memorabilia I lost in that long-ago debacle was a 1984 photograph of a weary Ray Davies autographing my State of Illinois unemployment card.
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Clusterflock is a creative Petri dish.
And Shelia, the man who introduced me to Capt. B. was like that with his music. He’d been to Vietnam, a child really, who brought back pictures of himself draped in big guns, lasting nightmares triggered by lights and helicopters and a reel-to-reel sound system. The music saved him, I am absolutely convinced of that.
And you are an archivist! Dichotomy anyone?
Oh Sheila, I love the story you tell here–which is not to say that I don’t cringe at the thought of such a loss. You deserve all good things, and that makes such pain all the more poignant. Your story, though, suddenly reminded me of a Michael Ryan poem I read a long time ago–maybe you will know the title, which I have forgotten–in which a man watching his house burn to the ground feels suddenly free in a way he wouldn’t have expected. There is a line in the poem about how “American” fire is, in its sweeping all away and making new room for the next thing. I hope that now the sense of all you lost in that dispossession is buffered a little by the balm of philosophy and the bright curve of the earth up where the road goes over a hill.
Is there anything in particular that you think about, yearn for, often? Among the things you lost.
Many years after a divorce, I can still get quite peeved about that Shake Russell album.
Don’t get me started, Cece.
Not much. But a few things. And their memory resonates now, as I am standing on the verge of losing much that I gained in the intervening years.
Daryl, I thought you might appreciate my non-anecdote.
Off to listen to Don Van Vliet (the artist formerly known as Captain Beefheart) sing “Orange Claw Hammer” as Frank Zappa accompanies him on guitar.
I am sorry. Did not mean to cause pain, although the psychic response to that query should have been anticipated. I also don’t like the sound of this: “… I am standing on the verge of losing much that I gained in the intervening years.” Don’t know the details, of course, but from what I see here many care. So much.
Cece. Honeybunny. No pain. (No pain, no gain.) Lawzy, girl. It’s okay.
No harm, no foul.
See you in email land.
OK. I can only imagine because of how I feel about, say, that 1922 silver dollar, which I found in the back of a chair in Wichita Falls, Texas, at age 5. The only thing I had from the “land” of my birth (you know Texas).
He insisted he didn’t have it. I know better. I just couldn’t find it before I left. And these are just little things. And sometimes I am evil, think I will outlive him and the widow surely is kind…
Clusterflock is a creative Petri dish.
maybe this should be the text for the about section.
You know, sometimes I just can’t figure out what it is about clusterflock.
I know I don’t have the education to really hang with this crowd, and most of the time I don’t think I’m smart enough either. I’ve certainly never traveled much beyond my tiny patch of the world, so there goes the fascinating life experience component that most of you share. Then I read this post (and many others like it) and my connection makes perfect sense.
A long time ago I was in a store waiting for a clerk and I looked up to make eye contact with an older lady who was also waiting. We smiled at each other. Now, usually that would have concluded one of millions of utterly forgettable casual encounters with a random stranger, but this woman kept smiling and didn’t look away so I didn’t look away either.
I said, “Do we know each other?” And she responded, “Our people always know each other.”
I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, but I kept smiling and nodded knowingly as if I did. She said, “Our People, dear. We know each other.”
That was over 30 years ago, and I’ve thought about it often. I have some theories about her literal meaning, but I believe the real connection had more to do with limbic resonance.
So this clusterflock thing. It must be limbic resonance that makes me feel so close, so empathetic with this group of people I’ve never met. But we have met, haven’t we? Reading Sheila’s post, I immediately got a lump in my throat and teared-up: an instant emotional response. Not everyone here has shared their story but clearly there is a symphony of common experience in the countless overlapping threads shared on clusterflock.
We know each other.
[...] Kathy Hilen-Smith: A long time ago I was in a store waiting for a clerk and I looked up to make eye contact with an older lady who was also waiting. We smiled at each other. Now, usually that would have concluded one of millions of utterly forgettable casual encounters with a random stranger, but this woman kept smiling and didn’t look away so I didn’t look away either. [...]
A lovely comment, Kathy. Thank you. I have felt that too–a kind of unexpected belonging that must be what brings out all the gifts of all who recognize our people. There are so many stories out there that often don’t get told because people believe they are too small to matter, and then in the telling of them they see and everybody sees how the largest things can sometimes only be approached indirectly. Doesn’t it seem sometime that memory is an ocean’s swell that lifts you and drops you in so many places it’s hard to see what’s doing the swimming and what the gentle lifting.
A belated ‘thank-you’ and slight inclination of the head, Daryl. And Cece. And Kathy. And all y’all.