Memories:

‘Life is the art of drawing without an eraser’

-       John  W Gardner

Sometimes household jobs take the right combination to be achieved.  It takes the right weather conditions, a gap in the day when I’m not having a light sabre battle with my son, or digging the garden with my wife.  I sorted our bookshelves out recently, getting rid of a number of books that I had neither the mental energy nor spiritual inclination to read again.  Out went the two Douglas Coupland books that aren’t as sublime as Girlfriend In A Coma.  See also, the two Chuck Palahniuk books that express the same ideas about the male psyche as Fight Club.

And then there is Guy Garvey.  I generally write this blog whilst listening to downloads of his show from BBC 6Music.  I’ve been a big fan of Elbow for the last ten years.  I’ve seen them live: twice with ex-girlfriends.  The mind twists and tries to accommodate the concept.  He played The Unthanks, whom I’ve adored for a similar period, but saw twice with my ex-girlfriend.  This got me thinking: how to do you separate the things you love; from the people that you don’t?  Which part of the universe do you separate; whilst keeping the soul whole?

There are some things I’ve always loved – I would say The Beatles, but being from Liverpool that’s more a contractual obligation than a matter of taste.  Shakespeare took a while, but I would postulate exposing teenagers to the greatest writer who ever lived is a difficult process.  It takes the breath of life to understand a man who wrote about every aspect of it.  I went off Star Wars for a while - the final straw was a large pile of merchandise that became another excuse for an argument with my ex.  Off to Oxfam it went.  Forgot about it, I did.  Hmm. Yes. 

The charity shops are filled with good intentions.  That and various copies of The Da Vinci Code.  But I do believe it’s possible to separate what you like; from the wreckage of your life.  What causes this process?  Time, I think.  It takes that, a space just to breathe and be you again.  When that song, a film, a TV programme stops making you think there is something in your eye.  When an anniversary becomes just another square on the calendar; or a note on your phone. 

Maybe too, you need the space in your life when that book isn’t there, that song isn’t on the radio, or that TV series gets cancelled.  In that divine, pure, dreamlike space; we feel comfortable enough to be alive, give ourselves permission to take another breath, trust another human hand or simply try again. And again.

But if you love it, it is part of you.  Great art is like that; it catches on the skin like pollen and takes on a new form as part of a human life.  Your life, to be precise.  No-one in history, ever has or ever will look or feel like you again.  That is not just new age bollocks, that is a bittersweet fact of life. Similarly, I think that Breaking The Waves is the greatest film of all time; because I saw it at the 051 Cinema in Liverpool in October 1996.  I think The Crow Road is my favourite Iain Banks novel; because I bought it when it came out in 1993.  My signed copy was lost by a so-called friend of mine. His later novels (let’s say from The Steep Approach To Garbadale onwards) aren’t as good as that.  The fact he died in June 2013 means I’m not going to get rid of any of them.  They are memories, part of my life and they’re not going anywhere. 

If it is about memory (and if you’ve been reading closely enough, you’ll know that I believe it is), then they are fluid, continually evolving things.  You create new ones, every second of every day.  And they link in with the eternal, ever shining ones.  I wouldn’t say Henry V is my favourite Shakespeare play. However, I know myself and my wife saw it at RSC on our first weekend away.  All You Need is Love isn’t my favourite Beatles song.  But we did play it at our wedding.

  

So: reject and gift aid the things that aren’t part of your psyche.  Accept and cherish those that are.