A Scattering of Musings

The house is emptier this weekend. We got the basement storage area cleared out; closets fully emptied of holiday dinnerware and old luggage, bedroom sets deconstructed into their base parts with box springs and mattresses wrapped up in plastic. The digital piano picked up and given a home with friends. We're closer to emptying this place, closer to closing its doors to us forever. 

The sun was out today, shining bright in between weird bouts of microbursts all weekend long. The high window in the foyer soaked up so much of that brightness it was hard not to get caught up in the angles of the moment, the lines of the hallway reaching up into the vaulted ceilings, framing the sunlit vision in a perfect moment. 

The house felt vibrant, alive. I wonder how much anthropomorphism I'm projecting onto things right now with the majority of my days and evenings spent in so much solitude. 

I feel like I could walk this house blind-folded all these years on, like I know the entirety of its tactile nature. Like I knew the walls as if they had their names buried deep inside themselves while also having been etched into the gray matter of my brain. 

*    *    *

I've not been sleeping well for a while. I feel transitional, like a ghost stuck between two worlds, haunting my old childhood home. Each time I return from my normal life to live inside this place, it is a completely different experience. 

The first time I returned, I stayed in my old bedroom like normal. 

The second time I returned, I stayed in the finished basement with barely a fraction of my belongings with me. 

This time, when I returned, I'd planned on staying for a week, maybe two at most; in two weeks, I'll have been here for four months, constantly puttering around after the work day is done...doing cleaning and organizing and loading up the car and emptying the car and emptying one house while a full one remains unpacked half an hour away. Every day is work, every night is some shape, form, or level of movement. 

I am tired. This is a level of exhaustion I've not yet experienced, and that's honestly saying something considering my employment history. 

*    *    *

I realized last week that my siblings and I are now in an interesting area where memories can no longer be recounted, that the institutional memory of our parentage is now completely closed off to us, it's gone, poof, locked away forever. The truth of whatever their lives together were is now nothing more than smoke and the unreliable tellings from others that may know the story, but see things through different lenses. 

That was a strange moment, realizing that there was just this mountain of information just suddenly gone, unavailable to access at a later date. As good as unshared secrets. As good as the ash left behind in small, weird piles, unable to be read by any living soul. 

*    *    *

A friend asked me tonight about playing music again. Beyond the superficial listening while driving, I've not really thought about DJ-ing in public or making a mix. There's literally been no actual time for me to sit down and devote the time to that, but...I made a new playlist on Spotify for when I'm ready. An old track by DJ Shadow (ironically, and perfectly, "Giving Up the Ghost" from his fantastic The Private Press LP) struck the right chord with me and I went down a rabbit hole of potential old trip hop stuff that may become a thing. 

I dunno. I find that the mixes I make during emotionally-charged parts of my life seem to fall flat or feel like they're trying too hard. A reflection back on my trip-hop/chillout stuff feels like a good move though. Tons of great stuff in that vein that jives with my headspace at the moment while remaining crowd-friendly. We'll see. 

*    *    *

I keep telling people that once things slow down, when life stops and allows a little breathing room...that I will be going somewhere for a while. When they ask where, my only qualifications are that it be "mentally and physically quiet" and that no, I've not yet had time to think about where because there's simply too much other crap going on for me to give it the attention it deserves. 

But once we sell this house, once we lock the front door for the last time, I will almost certainly figure out an escape plan, put a bug-out bag together, and end up somewhere where I don't know a single soul. 

This is not normally my speed as I tend to like traveling with friends or family. But honestly, I'm ready to throw all my devices into a body of water and disappear for a few weeks, potentially bordering on a few months (...kidding. But only a little bit, because I honestly just might...). I am ready to full-on disconnect again the way I did during grad school and then again the first year after grad school. I am ready to find my creative center again. 

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