Ruminations While Rummaging Through Boxes

The other day, someone liked one of my posts published nearly a year ago. It’s not unusual for me to receive notification via my WordPress app that someone has stumbled across an older post and enjoyed reading it (after all that is what the “like” button is for, right?).

Since going live with The Devotional Guy™ in late 2013, I’ve published 900 posts. That works out to roughly 100 posts per year and an average of two posts a week. I am contemplating revamping some of my older posts. What do you think?

If you scroll through my blog you will find a trail of progress from those early days of blogging to now. Blogs are online journals of sorts. They are digital diaries recording a person’s story even if that individual isn’t necessarily bent on writing a memoir. Chained together, our older posts give us a glimpse of who we were then, even if it’s through pictures or poetry, rather than prose.

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Rummaging through boxes of cluttered possessions, I stumbled across boxes of old cards, letters, and documents. It wasn’t equal to finding lost treasure since having it in my possession implies it was never really lost. However, uncovering these items gave me great pleasure.

There are typed letters from my Opa Bruno, my maternal grandfather and handwritten letters from my Oma Hedwig, my paternal grandmother. There are cards and letters from cousins. Another box contained a file of letters and documents detailing my Vati -German for Dad-landed a job in America with Marshall Pottery in the early 1970s.

In another box, I found some old family films. I hope to find someone to transfer them to a digital or streamable format. I am pretty sure they are old movies depicting moments of my early childhood, back when I lived in Switzerland.

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Speaking of rummaging through old memories, I’ve been revisiting several old R.E.M albums, ever since my longtime friend George texted me that he had been on a R.E.M listening binge. Document remains one of my favorite R.E.M records as does Fables of the Reconstruction. Naturally, Out of Time and Automatic for the People rank high on my list of all-time favorites.

Back in the early summer months of 1983, I picked up R.E.M’s Murmur on cassette after reading a review about the record that piqued my interest. I liked some of the songs, but I wasn’t convinced. Then a of couple years later, I met a very artistic and beautiful girl named Mary B who loved Michael Stipe and R.E.M. Naturally, since there was a girl involved, I took a renewed interest in the band.

Once upon a time, my friend George, aka Lowdog, and I spent countless hours jamming to their music and debating the quality of each record. George probably still has a list of his favorite songs and records somewhere amongst his journals. He writes everything down. That was back in the days of the “Three- Ring-Look-At-Me-Circus,” Lowdog’s monicker for the alcohol fueled displays of testosterone and braggadocio that often accompanied any gathering that included our mutual friends Easy and Grant.

Those were some crazy days.

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It’s important to make memories in your life. Relationships are vital to living a full life. God didn’t intend for us to be alone. Yes, relationships can certainly complicate things. But without people in our lives, we would starve that which is best in each of us. Love requires another human being in order to reach its full potential. So live well and love well.

Stay healthy. Be safe. Keep the faith.

The Devotional Guy™

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Belong

(by R.E.M, from Out of Time, 1991)

Her world collapsed early Sunday morning
She got up from the kitchen table
Folded the newspaper and silenced the radio
Those creatures jumped the barricades
And have headed for the sea, seaOoh
Ooh
Those creatures jumped the barricades
And have headed for the sea
She began to breathe
To breathe at the thought of such freedom
Stood and whispered to her child, “belong”
She held the child and whispered
With calm, calm, “belong”Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
She stood and whispered to her child, “belong”
She held the child and whispered
With calm, calm, “belong”Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Those barricades can only hold for so long
Her world collapsed early Sunday morning
She took the child held tight
Opened the window
A breath, this song, how long
And knew, knew, “belong”
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh

Source: LyricFindSongwriters:

Songwriters: Bill Berry / Peter Buck / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe

Belong lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group