Left as Rain
I bought a small bag of Cheez-its from a vending machine today with a quarter from 1965, and in the time it took me to walk from my desk to the vending machine, I thought about the small artifacts we ignore. That quarter, which has now become part of a pile of quarters, was minted the year my parents were married. That was the first real year of their lives; just graduated from high school and starting college, fresh off an elopement and honeymoon to Mexico, loving each other more than could believe, living in a crappy apartment in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with almost no money to their name, and just being so happy about it. It’s possible that my dad put gas in his 1956 Olds Special with the quarter that I held in my hands today. He could’ve driven my mom to the woods and walked down some old dirt road while holding her hand, because of that quarter. And that quarter continued to make the same small things possible in people’s lives for the last 45 years.
The point is that, regardless of its given worth based on public opinion, an artifact itself can be worth more than the sum of its parts. So to speak. An artifact can have meaning instead of just worth, it represents everything that everyone has ever believed about it, and everything that has resulted because of its existence. All day today I’ve been listening to music at Left is Rain, and it’s all great, and there is so much of it, but I miss the artifacts. I’m definitely not the kind of person who hates digital music, very far from it. I just can’t help but remember how amazing it was when I found my parents stash of old, forgotten records, and played them for myself on our turntable. And those records must have meant so many things to my parents, too. Maybe they listened to Blood, Sweat, and Tears while they were sitting around their little trailer on the lake in Alabama, the sun was out, it was Saturday, and everything was gonna be fine. The music is the most important part, but we also can’t forget that the record itself comes to represent those memories, and even more, that whole period of their lives.
The point of all of this was originally that you should go to Left is Rain and just let it play through all 700 -some-odd songs, and have yourself a fine time doing it. But that stupid quarter got me wistful, and a little sad that the digital age doesn’t offer much in the way of artifacts. Even these words are going to just vanish into nothing someday, because they were never really here. It makes things seem not only less permanent, but less meaningful. But hey, I’ve got a woman I love and my parent’s old Blood, Sweat and Tears record at home; I can make memories of my own.




