The Band Room moves on
I have been deep into culling my belongings and finding new homes for them.
And fall seems to accelerate this endeavor.
Last year it was giving up my fabulous purple sofa, which I grudgingly came to acknowledge was so faded that the purple had reinvented itself as a duller, more muddled hue. And then there were my 23 basic wine glasses – for my next block party. You get the picture.
I've recently moved on to repurposing spaces and their contents. After all, at some point we have to deal with those places whose inhabitants have moved on. For me it's The Band Room.
The décor is the 2000s, when this finished space in the basement became the enclave of musicians-in-the-making and music aficionados at their most ravenous. Note the multitude of posters stuck to the walls with masking tape and pins.
They represent many genres … and other influences, which it's probably best I don't investigate further. I recognize the Beatles, Weezer, Radiohead, Green Day, Nick Cave. And Belle and Sebastian sound vaguely familiar.
The rest? Whatever happened to Quasi, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Head of Femur, M83, Mogwai, and tindersticks?
The task of repurposing this room is actually years overdue. Our LA daughter moved out more than 10 years ago, and her brothers were gone before that.
But it's hard to get rid of the artifacts of a time when the velocity and volume of life were so exhilarating... and exhausting. It's hard to pack up things and label them “The Past.”
Luckily, there's a ping-pong table in The Band Room, and an electronic dart board, which scream Game Room, right?
Still I'm not the only one going through this process of curating, and mine is not the only generation.
My thirty-something LA daughter owns the forlorn drum kit in the corner of The Band Room, abandoned long before she left home. And her Barbie collection is packed away not far from the drums.
She'll be home for Thanksgiving, and she's promised to work on culling her remaining artifacts. No doubt tears will be involved.
But she's already warned me that carting the Mervyn's Christmas village cross country is not in the cards. This despite the fact that I really want to find a home for that special place.
Places, real and imagined, get reinvented by their occupants. I'm looking forward to seeing who those places meet next.
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We all have a Band Room (mine is called the Art Room). I spend way too much time trying to find the right home for the things I'm parting with, much like the pet parent who must go into assisted living or beyond and wants to make sure their four-legged friend has the best possible life after we part. Are we attached to the things or what the things represent -- the memories, the people, the times? I suspect the latter. Good luck. I hope the younger generation will help! (Good luck with the Christmas village!) ~ jeanie
I think many of us have a version of the “Band Room.” The angst of knowing how to tackle it is real!
I feel your pain, Sharon. After all, I spent my whole career in “The Band Room.” Jim Barry