Lasts and Firsts
I've just done my last load of laundry. On Wednesday, I'll move to my new home, and the familiar whirr and buzz of this washer-dryer duo will be replaced by another that will hopefully grow on me.
I remember going out to buy them... That was only after I'd put money aside from each pay cheque for a few years to replace the teetering top-loading antiques that came with the apartment with something 'modern'. Jack and I had scoured many stores, over many weeks (bless his patience) till serendipity (and a bit of pressure) got me to buy this set.
I feel a certain sadness closing its doors for the last time. I feel the same sadness with so many things in this home that I've come to know these past six and a half years. I remember my first trip back to India, almost 4 years after moving to Canada, and flipping the switch to turn on the lights in my old bedroom, hearing that click and being drawn to tears.
It's the associations and familiarity of that act had that mattered. That simple click was a fixture (no pun intended) of my life, and it marked a routine that had intertwined in it stories and associated feelings, the course of both significant and banal days- and yes, life itself. And while all those other intangibles will still remain with me after the switch has been replaced with another in my life, it was still an unwavering, comforting, episodic and routine punctuation in that that story that spans days and then weeks and then years...
Yes, both I and the man in the ikea advert know that they are mere objects and have no feelings, but I do...
I remember going out to buy them... That was only after I'd put money aside from each pay cheque for a few years to replace the teetering top-loading antiques that came with the apartment with something 'modern'. Jack and I had scoured many stores, over many weeks (bless his patience) till serendipity (and a bit of pressure) got me to buy this set.
I feel a certain sadness closing its doors for the last time. I feel the same sadness with so many things in this home that I've come to know these past six and a half years. I remember my first trip back to India, almost 4 years after moving to Canada, and flipping the switch to turn on the lights in my old bedroom, hearing that click and being drawn to tears.
It's the associations and familiarity of that act had that mattered. That simple click was a fixture (no pun intended) of my life, and it marked a routine that had intertwined in it stories and associated feelings, the course of both significant and banal days- and yes, life itself. And while all those other intangibles will still remain with me after the switch has been replaced with another in my life, it was still an unwavering, comforting, episodic and routine punctuation in that that story that spans days and then weeks and then years...
Yes, both I and the man in the ikea advert know that they are mere objects and have no feelings, but I do...
T!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to see you didn't leave your eloquence back with the old light fixture. I read you and it's as if I'm there; a treat. Hopefully by now the stunning view will have displaced the Comfort of the Click, and buoyed your spirits to commensurate heights.
Disfruta, Muchacho.
G