Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Hoarders

Last night, when driving to Patrick's apartment after playing hooky from one of my jobs (hey, a girl who skipped a total of one class in graduate school AND college has the right to play a little hooky from one of her three dead end jobs, alright?), Jack Johnson's "Flake" came on the radio. Instead of changing the channel like a normal person in the year 2011 would, I kept it on, and--yes I will admit this--sang along. It's a hard soul that can resist the line I know she loves the sunrise; no longer sees it with her sleeping eyes.

I thought about Jack Johnson, about how ten years ago I was listening to this song--on the radio, in my CD player while I walked to the bus stop, on the bus in the early morning rides to junior high and high school. I still have that Jack Johnson CD on my computer, an album among the hundreds of albums I have taking up space on my hard drive. How long has it been since I've listened to it? Or to Blink 182, or Oren Lavie?

Growing up, we had a neighbor named Mrs. Kelly, who kept dozens of cats, had a six acre garden, and a house full of stacks of newspapers, bags of Goodwill finds, boxes and boxes of junk and styrofoam containers, and crates of dried up soda. My grandmother, two houses down, was the same way, and the remnants of her penchant for antique kitchen items could be seen on the walls of my childhood home--though my father and mother did clean out her stash of used napkins before moving in. I know many people with grandparents who are this way; Patrick says that each time he visits his grandfather's house he moves around jugs of old water that his granddad refuses to get rid of.

But me? Jack Johnson, Matchbox 20, that one Bob Marley album we all loved as teenagers: these are the things I keep. While a data mp3 file may take up much less space than all the Readers' Digest issues from 1971-1977, I think the sentiment still comes from the same place.

1 comment:

Chelsea said...

Mine would be owning every single DMB cd. Slightly embarrassing...