It's been a long time for me: six months since I've made any sort of mix, and years without putting anything on tape. What sparked again the interest? I'm not entirely sure. I think perhaps it was two words I heard one evening on the BBC, while doing dishes: "dedicated diarist"; or it might have been re-reading Tarrou's journal he kept during the quarantine of Oran. One human truth, I believe, is this: we forget our lives. The days we hate and love, what we are made of - it all slips away almost as quickly as it happens. I am trying to keep track. I write a great deal already, but my novel is not auto- biographical (and on that note, I am, this week, trying to make a decision: is "along" most suitable? or does "onward through" more fully capture the image and sound of the horsewoman and her sorrel galloping through the Bois de Boulogne?). I listen to music here in my flat quite often - much more now that the city is again accepting mail - and when I hear songs I grew to love months prior, I feel what it was like to be alive back then. Dubbing these recordings to cassette helps me remember them. In some ways, it is simply a catalog. An archive.
This tape also describes some of my feelings of the last year. My life is changing in both subtle and drastic ways. I have been thinking about new opportunities, lost opportunities, the births and deaths of lifestyles. Without knowing, you may not notice it: but the apex of this three-and-a-half hour ordeal is track four, side four. Its lyrics go like this:
If I'd only known, I could have said something sooner
but I didn't, so I didn't, now it's done.
The last thing I'd do was the first thing you did.
What we once had is all gone.
I see it all a little too clear,
too clear for my own good.
'Let sleeping dogs lie' is a good rule, I'm told -
I only wish that they would.
If I'd only known, I could have said something sooner.
I really did think it would last.
Now it's too late, it's over and now
my future is all in my past.
Kind of like in White Oleander when Astrid tells Ingrid: "Those people are not the enemy, Mother. We are. You and me. They don't hurt us. We hurt them."
Like usual, this tape is dedicated to a dead animal - this time a squirrel. I buried him tonight after I found him dead in the road, his skull opened by impact. I held him through the bag; his body was still warm.
It reminds me of when the rats all died.
This is Joseph Grand saying,
hats off!
