Last night we went to see a documentary about a Portland band. Before the movie started I wondered if I would feel morbid nostalgia for home, but luckily, there were only small glimpses of bridges. The strongest response we both had was a sincere rapture over the tambourine boy. I particularly liked his spectacles.
But perhaps the film kicked off something in my mind, because I woke up this morning with a compelling need to purge the last of our boxes. We’ve been here sixteen months and we are not completely unpacked; partly because we have run out of cupboard space, but mostly because I do not want to make decisions about what to keep.
I was sufficiently paranoid to bring all of our tax documents and identity papers in my carry-on luggage, but there they have sat, in the suitcase under the bed. The boxes represent a similar lack of planning and wealth of resources. Byron found a tape of Beth doing Straight to Hell eight years ago, the soundtrack of our impoverished early years in Portland, and I wiled away the day sorting through the detritus of an abandoned life.