A couple months back while on a morning run, I came upon what looked to be a neighbor’s moving day trash. Sticking out of the pile and catching my eye was a mid-90s SONY stereo, resplendently protected from the elements in its original cabinet–one of those old rolly things with the components on top and the record storage underneath, busted plastic wheels as good as rubber stoppers, and the glass front door blowing in the breeze because the duct tape (where the magnet used to be) wasn’t sticking anymore. I’d finish the run and if the stereo was there by the time I got back to it with the van, cool. If not, cool.
Turned out the stereo was still there on the curb. I brought it home and it became a kind of foster child in the garage while I struggled to sell it on CraigsList. The kids were loving playing with it despite all of their records being too scratched to play without skipping after a minute. The fella who eventually came to take it away was an avid record player who I invited to have a look at my collection; if ever there was a time to sell off a few records, it’s nowadays. The collection here in California is what I’d describe as the headstash of the larger collection, still in the crawlspace of my mother’s home in Vermont.
I sold a lot of records… but I kept a lot of records. Most importantly, I got back in touch with my records, even if I didn’t play or even touch each of them. To merely see their covers brought me back to places and times in my life that were almost entirely happy and leisurely and made me hopeful for the day when the kids are older and our space is larger, when a stereo will once again fit in my life. Akin to photo or audio collection, the records are a part of me that I grateful for.