My falling apart address book has many faded folks and memories torn from its weary pages. Many too with who I have parted ways, left behind from Florida to Washington to New Mexico, and even now some are crossed off, scribbled over. Most names lie awake at night inside that old book. And yes, many others rest asleep in my pocket under CONTACTS on my electrical device.
It is scary for me to be so much older than your are...and still have the collections, recollections perhaps I have even more than you.
I have an old Rolodex-style card address “book” from a close friend who died in 1996 … I sort of keep it “ready” as it’s both haunting and comforting to have, though I’ve not looked at it for years.Perhaps, like I visit this friend’s grave from time to time when back in Green Bay where I was born. I found the last line awkwardly accurate … I do “weed out” my e-address book. Maybe time to change. Thanks, Sherman.
Thank you, I was going through an old box recently and found a business card file that I used in the early days of my career. I have business cards from the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. I must've met these famous producers because I have their cards but I don't remember it. The way a physical business contact list reminds you of how ephemeral capitalism is.
Sad, beautiful, but so true as we get older. We have new neighbors that just moved up here from Texas (really nice) but I can't seem to delete the previous neighbor's name and number after she died last year. Just. Can't. Do. It.
That is a great question, I don't have an answer, but I do commend you for keeping them out of the landfill. I've always traded my old phones in on the cost of a new one. But my contact lists are always transferred, including the numbers I can't get myself to delete.
I read this poem twice today. The first time to enjoy how it so deftly expresses something so profound in such few words. And the second time, for the exact same reason! My brother hanged himself in 2014. I’ve never deleted his number from my address book. There’s a part of me that hopes to have missed call from him some day. And I still have his last voice message saved--not only on through the carrier service but as a sound byte stored on “the cloud,” which seems somehow a fitting place to embalm the voice of a departed loved one.
"half-cemetery" is a term that can easily be applied to my phone. I have far too many contacts on my phone that have died. And I find it extremely difficult to delete them. I know I would still be able to picture them in my mind's eye, but it feels it would be a betrayal to their memory to delete them.
I will look forward to that. This bastard was so predatory, unkind, disrespectful to my poor needy unsuspecting cousin. “A right bawbag”, the Scots would call such a one. And he were one!
I keep them as well. I have an old messy address book with people no longer here, ( and a whole list of former addresses, cross outs, updates) and now my phone is becoming a digital version of that book.
I talked to a childhood friend on the phone last week. We hadn't seen or spoken to each other in decades. And he and spent three hours on our call. I can't even remember the last time I had such a lengthy personal phone call.
So many thoughts and feelings, wonderments, anticipations, questions, doubts, sureties. Small wonder that so much of humanity’s imagination has focused on what lies beyond, so much of our sadness emanating from missing beloved presences and dread from anticipating it. Yet I treasure those thin times and places which render those much loved ones more immediately present to me. And I confess that once, at least, I attended a funeral just to make sure the decedent was truly deceased (I’d do it again).
As that nether end of my address book grows, I increasingly strive to cherish those on both ends of it, to not neglect to add to the fore though dreading the growth of the aft, recognizing as I age that I now number among the likely sooner to move on. As ever, I live it all confident that life, though changing profoundly, does not end. What forms future consciousness may take I don’t know, though like most people, I have my hopes.
I treasure these questions. Thank you for raising them anew. For now, I will cease rambling, ever continue hoping.
Other words and concepts come to mind when we are linking memory to those who have passed from Earth, but remain in our digital /electronic 'contacts' > in addition to talisman,: ephemera, memorabilia . I feel sad that too often the phone/i-pad/PC is our conduit to be with others.
I'm old enough that I still have paper address books full of beloveds no longer alive as well as those in my phone--somehow I can't bring myself to delete them. It feels too "final"--as if death isn't final enough....
My falling apart address book has many faded folks and memories torn from its weary pages. Many too with who I have parted ways, left behind from Florida to Washington to New Mexico, and even now some are crossed off, scribbled over. Most names lie awake at night inside that old book. And yes, many others rest asleep in my pocket under CONTACTS on my electrical device.
It is scary for me to be so much older than your are...and still have the collections, recollections perhaps I have even more than you.
I'm sure your memory shelves contain more. The years make mor chapters in our mind's anthology.
I have an old Rolodex-style card address “book” from a close friend who died in 1996 … I sort of keep it “ready” as it’s both haunting and comforting to have, though I’ve not looked at it for years.Perhaps, like I visit this friend’s grave from time to time when back in Green Bay where I was born. I found the last line awkwardly accurate … I do “weed out” my e-address book. Maybe time to change. Thanks, Sherman.
Thank you, I was going through an old box recently and found a business card file that I used in the early days of my career. I have business cards from the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. I must've met these famous producers because I have their cards but I don't remember it. The way a physical business contact list reminds you of how ephemeral capitalism is.
Sad, beautiful, but so true as we get older. We have new neighbors that just moved up here from Texas (really nice) but I can't seem to delete the previous neighbor's name and number after she died last year. Just. Can't. Do. It.
I grieve the loss of neighbors who moved! Can't imagine how awful it would be to lose beloved neighbors to death.
This hits so close to the bone, the heart, the gut…. Thank you
Thank you, Leigh!
I love this one.
Thank you!
Sad, but beautiful. And a great recording of modern culture. Somehow deleting (or in my case altering) contact details feels so definitive.
That is a great question, I don't have an answer, but I do commend you for keeping them out of the landfill. I've always traded my old phones in on the cost of a new one. But my contact lists are always transferred, including the numbers I can't get myself to delete.
I read this poem twice today. The first time to enjoy how it so deftly expresses something so profound in such few words. And the second time, for the exact same reason! My brother hanged himself in 2014. I’ve never deleted his number from my address book. There’s a part of me that hopes to have missed call from him some day. And I still have his last voice message saved--not only on through the carrier service but as a sound byte stored on “the cloud,” which seems somehow a fitting place to embalm the voice of a departed loved one.
Condolences. Yes, the "cloud" is where we keep the departed, isn't it?
"half-cemetery" is a term that can easily be applied to my phone. I have far too many contacts on my phone that have died. And I find it extremely difficult to delete them. I know I would still be able to picture them in my mind's eye, but it feels it would be a betrayal to their memory to delete them.
We have a drawer full of old phones. We've decided to keep out electronic waste with us. What does that mean?
I will look forward to that. This bastard was so predatory, unkind, disrespectful to my poor needy unsuspecting cousin. “A right bawbag”, the Scots would call such a one. And he were one!
Bawbag!
Agree! I have avoided having the electronic device front and center, or even carrying my phone everywhere I go.
What other touch-stones can we discuss as connectors?
Best regards,
Maree
I keep them as well. I have an old messy address book with people no longer here, ( and a whole list of former addresses, cross outs, updates) and now my phone is becoming a digital version of that book.
I talked to a childhood friend on the phone last week. We hadn't seen or spoken to each other in decades. And he and spent three hours on our call. I can't even remember the last time I had such a lengthy personal phone call.
So many thoughts and feelings, wonderments, anticipations, questions, doubts, sureties. Small wonder that so much of humanity’s imagination has focused on what lies beyond, so much of our sadness emanating from missing beloved presences and dread from anticipating it. Yet I treasure those thin times and places which render those much loved ones more immediately present to me. And I confess that once, at least, I attended a funeral just to make sure the decedent was truly deceased (I’d do it again).
As that nether end of my address book grows, I increasingly strive to cherish those on both ends of it, to not neglect to add to the fore though dreading the growth of the aft, recognizing as I age that I now number among the likely sooner to move on. As ever, I live it all confident that life, though changing profoundly, does not end. What forms future consciousness may take I don’t know, though like most people, I have my hopes.
I treasure these questions. Thank you for raising them anew. For now, I will cease rambling, ever continue hoping.
Thank you, Kerry. You hit on something I'll have to write about. What happens when we feel good/relieved/grimly positive about somebody else's death?
yep. feels taboo to erase or delete their names as if erasing the memory, the connection. how strange our talismans.
Talisman...such a good word.
Other words and concepts come to mind when we are linking memory to those who have passed from Earth, but remain in our digital /electronic 'contacts' > in addition to talisman,: ephemera, memorabilia . I feel sad that too often the phone/i-pad/PC is our conduit to be with others.
Tech is a far inferior type of human connection.
Really lovely, striking poem. A little haunting. Rich like honey.
Thank you, Michael.
I'm old enough that I still have paper address books full of beloveds no longer alive as well as those in my phone--somehow I can't bring myself to delete them. It feels too "final"--as if death isn't final enough....
I probably have paper address books in storage!