Letters to my later years

I sometimes look back on the things I thought as a child, teen, or 20-something and I'm slightly embarassed. That being said I really wonder where a 35 year old version of myself will stand in relation to myself now. At 27 have I finally latched onto a respectable track?

Its not a grave concern, but I always try to take it a little slower. I watch most of my friends sacrafice time and socilization to go after master's degrees and doctorates. I don't know what they're thinking. Maybe its some sort of artists temperment, but I'm always watching life from the third person. And so now when I'm thinking of what life will look like now from 8 years on, everythings little specs in a sprawling city of bright lights. When I think back to my life as, say, a 23 year old, its from a distance, theres just people riding in train cars and busese. I can watch the successes and rejections from a lunar-distance and pretend it was all a story. I'm not the same person now as I was then, and maybe it helps to distance myself.

I seem to review everything floating high above the city, watching where I was and where the large picture was headed. What went on downtown that New Years Eve I spent making sure you didn't puke on the floor. When we watched bad netflix choices and ate leftovers that wouldn't upset your stomach. I never know who these women are, but I've got a bad feeling their all placeholders in a narritive I've written for myself. I'd guess I date the ones that come closest to fitting the mold, but like an old literary idol of mine, I'm still trying to close a West Egg gap that I can never find a bridge for.

Last night I couldn't sleep, and I thought of all the conversations I would have if I ever ran into the ex's of mine. Who would get the ire I'd promised when it was freshly ended, who I never really stopped thinking about and what i'd tell them. I'm less angry as an older man, and less paraoid; fewer things really bother me. I'm wondering if its all the narration I'm using when I watch the world these days. As a reactionary teen, everything was immediate. Post-grad I'm adjusting. At 35 will I be world apart?

Maybe I'll just become one with nature like the Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong, fading into the landscape and all that crap. I never did like Jewett anyhow.

Where my dreams lay dead.

If you're looking to write there are a few go to sources that always help and one of those is Ranier Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet." Its a fairly large piece of work, as instructionals go, but the one thing that struck me while reading it was this line (that I didn't memorize, I went back and dug it up):

And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sounds - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories?

He obviously couldn't go into every detail about how you ought to utalize you're memories, but for me it always works best when I meet those thoughts with the new, raw current reality of the situation.

Take for example: Caldor.

A buddy of mine I met back in college, who I should mention has a penchant for odd things, recently made his Facebook photo the old Caldor Rainbow (which had 3 of the ugliest colors you could think of put together; looked like Thanksgiving year round). I went to Google and poked around in the results for "caldor" and what I found was a little jarring.

If I had to make something up off of the top of my head, I'd imagine there are memories you have with prolonged traditions: Christmas at your Mothers house, The Town 4th of July Parade, friends backyard cookouts. And then there are memories you have because somethings gone like, say, old department stores, friends/family who've passed away, ect.

The thing about the latter is that you don't really conciously record that things are going away. Generally (as the topic here is Caldor) you wouldn't be shopping at a business right before its closing down(this is why its closing down). So generally, it has to come flooding back years later because something tripped that memory. Today I found tons of information on the chains successes and failures but the most striking were these photos.







Caldor wasn't the only game in town where I grew up, but it was the closets game to my house, and our end of the city so it held some fairly solid memories for me. It was always where my dad would take my brother and I for Valentines Day to get my mother earings, or perfume, or something foolish. I remember once I ran into my Little League coach doing the same thing there. That was the norm, everyone did that as far as I knew. Whenever my mother and my grandmother would go shopping, it was the best place because at least they had a toy section we could go play in while they shopped around.

When I look at these photos now I see two things: The first being a place that vanished overnight and came up too late, like a childhood friend you remember after reaing the obituary. The second is what that must feel like to towns and cities who haven't been as lucky. Taunton is pretty resiliant and financially strong. Where our Caldor was other businesses have opened up and its thriving. But to anyone who saw the 56 jobs a stroe held vanish only to be replaced by the wind-swept barron parkinglots full of nothing is a little heartbreaking.

I look at those photos and know that there are children out there in dying communities that don't get to buy cheap-o gifts for their families, and couldn't if the store was still there. Money's tight these days, and jobs are scare. I don't think I needed the cadavar of some long-lost memory to tell me that, but I can't help thinking about it when the crime scene shows up in the local paper.