Just how does the brain keep track of all the crap that gets thrown at it in this life? What sticks and why?
Life is an endless parade of vicissitudes. Childhood, growing up, moving, learning, money, work, romance, kids and Ikea furniture all pass like ghosts in rockets and end up on the curb.
Who is the invisible designer of this life and how do I nail him down for a meeting and recap? A PowerPoint that sums it all up in bullet points.
We are all shopworn, living a series of short scenes full of sleep, tears, truffles, bacon and laughter. We are silken cases wrapped like mummies in the stuff of life often missing the fleet beauty of words and real sentiment. Glass shards to be pieced back together. We are tweets. We are becoming clouds.
I have written often about collecting and finding ways of marking the way.
I like to leave bread-crumbs. Often I am overwhelmed about everything there is to remember. Our brains rain, and our synapses are more nervous than the internet. I have things to do, songs to sing, words to eat. Time is short, and I am trying to make room for more. I am collecting the now and future moments.
I collect those plastic hotel room keys. They literally function as bookmarks.
They have no location or time marked, but remain as tangible evidence that I have been some where. I can link this with calendar entries, and online posts and random photos of buildings and faces that I take. These are the keys to my cloud.
I keep lists, and journal entries and songs, snippets of articles and piles of notes to merge my kooky curiosity with some anchor. Snippets of words jotted down become songs, entries, stories, Tweets, all map-making. I bookmark, take pictures of books, note ideas and snap wine bottle labels and send them to Evernote. It is a pastiche, not quite a masterpiece, but a way to keep track.
I would like to hear what you do.
As you well know, I collect underwear, as well as snippets of hair and fingernail clippings, usually when peeps is asleeps...if the person is in a deep enough sleep, I can usually get a blood sample. BTW, I lost your fingernails when I moved. Could you please send some when you find time? (Toenails are fine, just wash your feet first this time) The underwear also can be used as bookmarks, but more often than not, as a facemask.
ReplyDeleteSeriously,I used to save everything, until I moved for the 5th time. I soon discovered that lugging mountainous loads of useless trivial crap and then making room for it somewhere became detrimental. Keep in mind, when you die your family is going to have to rummage through all that stuff...don't do that to them, man! "Who gets to keep dad's playboy club keychain?" "He's got another one? I already have two..."
So the only thing I keep now is various sex tapes I've made over the years. BTW, I lost yours, so could you send me another one? (No animals this time) Thanks!