Muddling Memoir: Vinyl

I am not a music person, not the kind who listens 24/7, wears earbuds to exercise or to block out ambient noise. Our home is quiet. When I write there is silence but for the voices in my own brain. When I walk or cycle, it is those voices or the birds or the wind that entertain. NPR plays during my short commute to and from work. When I put on music, I want to listen, truly listen, but  I find myself doing very little listening these days.

Yet as I untied each tiny bow on every Mexican ornament from the dry fir and pack away Christmas for another year, I made plans. The turntable would fit on the sideboard. I'd find some sort of decorative container, something other than cardboard, for the vinyl. I wasn't certain what I'd saved in the boxes under the stairs. It would be like Christmas all over again this opening of storage boxes to find LPs stored for decades silently awaiting resurgence.

When my husband and I married almost twenty-seven years ago, we merged our LP collections. I wonder when I will have time to listen to all that music. I've begun to sketch. A new hobby. A skill I hope to develop. I wonder if sketch pad and vinyl complement each other better than writing and music do for me. I think yes. There are no voices in my brain, no images flooding behind my eyelids like a movie on a screen when I draw.

The tree down. The house cleaned. My husband brought out the turntable and set it up only to discover it no longer functioned. The rubber belt, a bit like a large rubber band, had dried to fragments. He ordered a replacement. When it arrives, I will listen to the music of my years in Mexico and welcome the memories I am confident will emerge.

Prior posts in this series: 
Muddling Memoir: Beginnings 
Muddling Memoir: Journals 
Muddling Memoir: Letters 
Muddling Memoir: Perspective
Muddling Memoir: A Timeline

Muddling Memoir: Closure? Never.

MuddlingMemoir: La Flor de Noche Buena

Muddling Memoir: Greats and Guides