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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
Many things have memories attached, and discarding the object sometimes feels like discarding the memory. The paperweight I bought in Prague while traveling to train Eastern Europeans about network security software. A tin butterfly from our time in Mexico when I was a child. The sequinned baby shoes I use as a prop in the flash class. I feel as though if I put them aside I may lose the thing that triggers the memory.
While I’m not ditching everything, a lot of these are getting digitized. I take a few pictures with my camera and stick it aside. Here’s an example of a book I’ve been carrying around since high days. My paternal grandmother got it for me when I expressed an interest in folk tales and folk songs. I drew on it heavily when writing songs for Armageddon, sometimes adapting songs outright, otherwise creating ones patterned after the originals.
It’s a hefty doorstop of a book. I suspect I’ll be able to find this knowledge, or comparable stuff, on the net whenever I need to. But at the same time, the object holds memories: sitting in my room in high school, reading through it, while the rain drummed on the roof and the locust tree outside my window tapped its long fingers on the glass, for one. Performing songs based on it as my bard on Armageddon, purple-haired, seemingly bemused but secretly sharp, Karaluvian Fale. I take more than just a photo of the dustjacket: one of the inside so I can see the font, another of an illustration, one of an enigmatic and very scrawly note. Enough that I’ll be able to evoke it, access those memories again if I want to.
What’s the best way to preserve these images? I haven’t gotten that far yet. For now I’m saving and tagging, and trying to shrink down the mass of physical stuff attached to my life.
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They’re celebrating their last day in style: balloons, a big card for everyone to sign, and free coffee all day long, but there is a sad undertone to the merriment. We’d gone through the drivethrough, then came in to sign the card and say goodbye. Last week, I’d made sure to sign up for the mailing list, to be notified if they find a new location, but so far the manager hasn’t seemed very hopeful about that.
As we were coming towards the door, a gentleman was coming out. We nodded at each other and he paused. Both of us felt, I think, a need to mark the occasion, to acknowledge the Jitters bond. “Sad day,” he said. “Very sad,” I replied. Inside all the baristas were glammed out and a little shell-shocked, I think, that this day had come.
Still, I will sorely miss Wendy and Megan and Amanda and all the rest of the cheerful Jitters crew.
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