Non-Adhesive Tape

Yesterday, I spent some time with my mom. We went through some papers and pictures, some drawers, looked in a closet. She gave me a brooch and a necklace of my granmother's. Costume pieces, nothing heirloom, but really nice things I am happy to have.

She gave me the tape of my dad's memorial.


When I came home, I destroyed my guest room, moving the bed to get into the closet to dig out the Christmas ornaments to get to the pristine boxes which held my old stereo, underneath all these old things. The CD player had gone wonky something like six or so years ago, but I had been unable to afford repairs, and unable to let myself just landfill the thing. Eventually, I'd put it away - in its original boxes, in even its original custom styrofoam. It's been holding up holiday gimcracks ever since.

But I knew the tape decks (two) were not the broken stuff. And so I dug it all out.



Made a mess of the guest room. Made a mess of the living room, too - boxes, haphazardly stashed stereo and speakers.

And the tape decks do not work.


***


I remembered at some point during the night, sometime in my sleep, or the twilight at dawn: I have my mom and dad's old stereo components.

Some of this stuff is HiFi, dating to the 70s. The turntable's classic, even has a wooden case.

The tape deck is here, too.

I haven't had time yet to put away my own mess, much less to dive under my mother's dining room table, acting as a DVD libary now - underneath the leaves of which live the stereo components (in, unfortunately, difficult-to-access glory; the table's leaves are pinned by architecture at the moment; so I'll have to pull everything out from one end - oy). I haven't had time to contemplate whether I even actually have speakers compatible with this stuff; for some reason, I think those went the way of the dodo years ago, or got repurposed to other electronics, by my mother, or my brother ...

But there is yet hope I can hear my dad's memorial.

And there are yet messes I can make hoping - trying - to do so.