Meditation on Time, past loves

Possibly because I’ve been reading the letters of poets Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge (SEE link my last post, http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2023/06/all-this-thinking-correspondence-of.html) between the two, I’ve been dwelling in the past. Add to that I’m old. Not old old, but thumbing the pages of social security mail sent to me, encouraging me to sign up for Part B—or is it A, and is it Medicare or Medicaid, is it anything? What are we assured of?

I’ve been dwelling in an existential crux, thinking about mortality, the passing of an age.

Maybe family makes us/me think about all this. I remember after both my parents died within a span of months, going back to Ohio to clear out the dregs, the last of the last at their extended living facility/house in Canal Fulton. I thought it was no big deal. I had a car, gas money, the time—all the factors that have usually vexed me in getting away from my “normal” life in Chicago. My plan was to stay at the house and slowly unwind everything, a sort of last goodbye. My sister-in-law Caryn didn’t think it was a good idea that I stay there alone. I didn’t understand; I brought trash bags, vinyl gloves, a bucket and cleaning products. I thought I was ready.

Yet . . . when I entered the nearly empty place, I was crushed, shattered by memories, voices now silent. It was as if the concept of death became reality and I was brought down by grief. No, grief came much later, nevertheless, a three-dimensional aspect came into view, objects in mirror are bigger than they appear. I realized they were gone.

And not just them, Mom and Dad, but everything they stood for. The 60s, 70s, 80s. Those little kiosks in parking lots where you could drive up and have film developed. The wall telephone in the kitchen, avocado green. Rolodexes. The radio.

A Millennial or Gen Z-er would have a hard time today conceiving of waiting to see photos, the cost?! to buy and develop film, as also the very idea of writing a letter, or recording your favorite song off the radio just to be able to play it back when you wanted to. The ability of sourcing most things you wanted now seems archaic. It’s at Amazon, stupid, is the implied reply.

All that needless waiting and worrying and spending. My parents. My family. Are in the rearview mirror. Sometimes there are no words for this feeling of not exactly grief, but the knowledge that you are next, you too will disappear. Someday I’ll be that anecdotal used-to-be along with cassette tapes and video players.

Just like the little cardboard jewelry boxes from Rike’s Department Store or the old pill bottles from Far Hills Pharmacy or Hills Pills found as I cleared out my parents bathroom cabinet, the last of the last of everything. The stuff no one wanted or found valuable was left to me to take care of. And. Oh . . . how I cried as I brushed it all into garbage bags. Gone, all gone.