I’m thumbing through my stash of magazines for what I think will be the last time. They’ve travelled with me, mostly from Athens, Georgia. One or two from Michigan circa 2007. I’ve held onto them because I thought they were beautiful and because they really were especially over a decade ago (maybe closer to 20 years ago) when I’d buy one here and there—a treat during my graduate school days in Chicago. I hope I have some of those issues still in some bin that I probably won’t open until our next move.
Today, I’m cutting out pictures or sayings that strike me for no reason in particular. I want to gather what last bits of beauty I see then place these stacks of processed trees into the recycling bin. Saying goodbye is complicated.
The January 2007 issue has a picture of two iPods, the regular size and the mini. I still have the nano but with no charging cord to see if the relic is worth a keep. I cut out the picture for nostalgia. My girls are so fascinated by this idea of an iPod.
The pages have aged, turning a slight brown around the edges.
2007 was when the magazine still had perforated takeaways you could gently tear out and use as bookmarks or display on your fridge door. Feeling the perforation is like feeling the memory of a good time long gone, toys in cereal boxes. I keep the one with the Zora Neale Hurston quote: “The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.”
I lick the pad of my finger every so often in order to turn the pages, kicking myself for at least the fifth time in nine months for not bringing that rubber thimble like thing with me from my office in Georgia. What amount of old ink and decaying paper am I ingesting?