Day 586, February 8, 2022

The Practice of Remembering

An Art Deco tin that once held mints, purchased in the gift shop of a museum. A pin from a fictional cult figure in a movie I had a bit part in. Still in the clear plastic envelope collar stays and spare buttons. A set of cuff links. A sheet of transparent numeral stickers. A rubber stamp of a lion exclaiming something in Korean. A string of miniature Tibetan prayer flags. A collection of small rectangles of scratch free polishing cloths. An unused heavy duty bandaid. Two packs of moistened towelettes saved from a visit to a clam shack. A fancy pen decorated in the style of Frank Gehry, that has been mostly unused because I wanted to preserve it. A plastic freebie bag from the dentist with an assortment of little bristle brushes to wiggle in the gaps of one’s teeth. Hand drawn flash cards from when I was trying to learn Korean. A pair of small scissors like one uses to cut long eyebrow hairs or loose threads that one of my teachers once owned, but the pivot pin is loose and now they cut nothing. A little plastic ice scraper that they were giving away at a local farm stand. A set of fifteen year old bass strings coiled up in a paper envelope. A plastic tube that holds a set of ear plugs. A stack of Korean American newspapers from Minneapolis that I was meaning to read. A cardboard box that used to hold business cards, but now has a picture hanging mount and several denominations of foreign coins. Three small pocket sized notebooks. Three small pocket sized gel pens. A mug missing its handle filled with Uniball pens that bleed when you take them on airplanes. A nameplate from a door that once opened on to my office. A guitar pick, misshapen from use. A jar filled with paper clips, a box of large size paper clips because I thought the large ones were getting hard to find, and a tin of round paper clips that were a gift. Two bags of fortune cookie fortunes a friend saved for my fortune cookie sonnet project. A cardboard tube containing a broadside by Archibald MacLeish. A manila envelope with a piece of calligraphy by a Korean poet. My ID card from when I worked at Mount Holyoke College more than a decade ago. A fancy name brand key ring that clasps two rings together, but ultimately was too big for my pocket. A medic alert dog tag that I wore when I was taking a daily dose of warfarin. Several stickers that came with packages that advertise a music store, a brand of capo, a conference I once went to. A set of cds that I burned, but they sound bad. A print of a large fertile woman that a student once gave me. A roll of toilet paper for when it is cold and my nose starts running. I have carried this desk with me. Almost as familiar as the touch of skin, a final parting good bye.