1) For about the last week I have finally been sorting through massive piles of unsorted, unfiled papers in the pantry. This has really involved a) shredding a shit ton of old utility bills and similar Documents With Numbers, and b) unjamming the shredder. This evening I got through a large gift box stuffed with papers and other ephemera that has been sitting, open, in the pantry since about 2017. Among all the Outdated Documents With Numbers I found:
A 2015/2016 program for Spring Awakening at Boston Conservatory, the first student production I’d ever seen there.
A thank-you letter from a friend sent following a post-concert dinner sometime. “Please forgive the block print. I wanted you to be able to read this.”
A fragment of the spine of my sweet Gramma’s copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayaam, of which I was not a good steward. (I do still have the book.)
A Post-It from the Final Roommate that he owed me rent for February, 2017.
A silhouette of me that I think might have been cut in Branson on family vacation in 2006, but I honestly can’t remember. No, that can’t be it, ‘cause I have a bow tie on. It makes me look like a cross between Harry Potter and Younger Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged.
A thank-you letter from the Gibson House after my presentation at their afternoon tea in 2012. Must have been “Failures of Brahmin Entertaining.”
The vote tally of the one class officer election I had to moderate/adjudicate in my entire alumni relations career.
2) These leavings, and some of the other contents, reminded me how extremely difficult 2016-2017 were for me, for so many different reasons. And that somehow I managed to survive it all.
3) Speaking of time capsules, tonight I tuned into John Richardson’s Virtual Piano Bar at 5 PM, which really hit home the duration of this quarantine. For me it’s now three and a half months! Grateful for my continued health - and yours! - but damn, I want to have a party.