Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall

cyan door by petcharat chanbua

Dear neighbor,

Last Thursday I saw your things in the rain on the sidewalk in front of your house. A chair with its legs broken. A big screen TV. A wobbly record player. An woven basket some wooden shelves stacked on top of each other. Now soggy and with a bit of mold about the edges. Little leftover corpses from an outdated style. A worn out decade. A mistreated youth.

I took the old record player. Fixed it with packaging tape and some old insulation tape from the sunporch windows until wobble as much. I propped the lid against the wall and laid down between the bed and the hardwood floor with its scratches of its own and that distinct smell of perfume scented smoke that reminds me of my grandmother. And listened. To the sound of women talking downstairs. The scratchy unsteady song I ever sang in public. The old spiritual you left along with it. The specific sound your heart makes when one ear is pressed to something and the other covered. Like a sea shell or a lover.

I have seen and taken other discarded items from the frequent piles outside your home. Among them, a couch we smoothed down and safety pinned a new green quilt covering to it. A golden Victorian sofa we scrubbed with barbasol and now watch movies on and eat soup and sausages. A rickety cart now filled with cookbooks and a bowl of fruit.

We love your things.

I thought of knocking on your door and telling you about how we mended all your thrownout things. And how the mending makes us feel useful. gentle. kind. Closer to the good person wd like to be. And frugal like my father. But whether it was my introverted nature speaking loudly or my overprotective mother voice saying do not talk to strangers, I didn’t. Rather, I left you a chicken scratched note attached to your mailbox with a clothespin saying something like, please let me know if throwing this record player away was not your intention, and I will return it straight away…

And so, I realized, ironically, that the truth is, our relationships, most of them, need some mending too. Perhaps more so than our things. And that mending, I never been as good at. So, perhaps, though I didn’t knock on your door last week, sometime soon., you come to our home, to sit on a familiar couch or hear some music without all the scratching. So we can remind ourselves we are not really separate, despite what the bricks and walls and walkways might indicate. So we can practice mending. you and i.

ashley

*relevant reading, Mending Wall by Robert Frost