Possessions are not people. They do not have the power to physically, truly, replace a person nor bring him back nor make things good again. And keeping every object that someone you loved once loved is not a sustainable, good, or fair practice for any party involved. I know this. I’ve told myself this. I remind myself that I know that I told myself this.
That said, I own a goodly portion of my Dad’s record collection. Like, hundreds. And yesterday was my first Father’s Day without him. So I decided to commune with his vinyl for a bit- while P.J. was at the massage I had shipped him off to (because even though I’m grieving my Dad, I’m still very much so celebrating the Dad who keeps this home steaming along like a freighter), and while Jasper napped and the girls watched a movie (because even though I love them dearly, lately I need to sit and Not Talk to people for a little while).
Holding each album in my hands makes me feel- even for the tiniest minute- like I’m with him again. This was his and yes, this album was tremendous- listen, no really listen to this progression right here- now go put it away in its sleeve. (Yes, with the insert paper, too.)
I wear his studio headphones, the ones we dubbed “elephant ears,” the ones Kate and I wore while dancing on the cherry red plush carpeting of our childhood basement (wild abandon-type dancing while tethered by a 2 foot cord), the ones that made me feel like I- however inappropriately- was shaking someone all night long, saying goodbye to a yellow brick road, and was suffering from something I got called “the fever.”
These vinyls, all lined up like color-coded, badass soldiers, now live happily among my favorite volumes on my happiest shelf in my “happy place” living room. I wish I could tell you that it works; that all this cheer staves off the feeling in my chest where I forget to breathe (and then when I remember, it’s worse, oh-so much worse), or that it staunches the tears- the kind that hurt the back of your eyeballs so badly you’re sure you’ve done some irreparable nerve damage or, at the very least, rendered the concept of eye makeup hilariously moot for the next few days.
There aren’t enough Pointer Sisters B-sides to quell that kind of pain. Springsteen has yet to pen the ballad which would prevent the food-poisoning-like rise of nausea that accompanies a fresh onslaught of blindsiding tears. And Elvin Bishop hasn’t offered me the comfort I’d fully expected from him.
For that matter, neither have any of his colleagues.
What now, Toto? Poco? You’ve given me nothing, Rick or Buffalo Springfield. Anything to say for yourselves, Ricky Skaggs and Boz Scaggs? B.B., Arlo, Taj, Lionel, James, Janis, Linda, none of the Neils. Neither the Beach Boys nor Johnny Winter. Not John Hall, John Cougar- with or without your Mellencamp- not Dr. John, or Dr. Hook, either. Steely Dan, Stealer’s Wheel, STEEL BARS BY MICHAEL BOLTON, the Allmans, the Doobies, the Clash, the Kinks, the Wailers, neither the Band nor the Marshall Tucker Band, the Who- hell, the Guess Who- or the Beatles.
Chicago, Kansas, Alabama, Nazareth, Berlin, Asia, not even Boston. Not even Boston.
I don’t know what immense power I expected this collection to wield- or to let me wield, to be more precise. Maybe I’m not ready. Maybe it’s a Sword in the Stone situation.
But whether or not it brings me comfort, it brings me him. In small, quiet, bursts. It’s not him, though. It’s not his warm smile or solid hug or how he always smelled like summer. It’s just this wonderful guy’s wonderful music collection, a mere fraction of who he was and why we all adored him. And it’ll have to be enough for now, because that’s really all it is: a girl old enough to know better, kneeling by a record player that’s seen better days, wearing headphones just the right size for her now- and searching through album covers like she expects to find something between the liner notes. Someone. A guy who couldn’t be narrowed down to one genre so really, why should I suppose he’d be hiding here, in one fraction of one of his collections? I know I won’t stop looking and listening, though. And whether it’s my Dad speaking through me or my brain so desperately wanting to believe he is, I can really almost hear his voice:
Man- MAN- this one was really something, wasn’t it?
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