No doubt it was Nathan Wiley's CD (that I found at Value Village last week) that inspired me to clean out an upstairs bookshelf a few days ago and send other CDs back to Value Village. What's that saying again, every action produces an equal and opposite reaction? Well, in this case, the reaction was a tad stronger, because I donated a grand total of 47 CDs.
That's Nathan Wiley, folks, someone you might want to check out, nominated for several East Coast Music Awards this year and quoted in this month's Performing Songwriter magazine. (He no doubt lives very far from here, too, being an East Coaster, so the likelihood that he'd spot his CD at our neighborhood Value Village is admittedly low.) His CD "High Low" is pretty good, and we're enjoying it a lot around the house, thanks to someone who decided to liberate it from his or her CD shelf.
So I decided to do the same, and it turned out to be quite a project.
Maybe because they were CDs, and not, say, books (which so far I don't write), I found the decision to give away a CD somewhat agonizing. But I got the hang of it, using a system that went pretty much like this.
I kept a CD if:
1) I like it and I'm likely to listen to again. (Unfortunately, the fact that the CDs were on this particular shelf, two floors away away from the stereo system, meant that I wasn't listening to it at all. That said, I did re-discover a few good CDs in today's organizing binge.)
2) The artist (or their friends) live close to my neighborhood Value Village.
3) I have an ongoing relationship with the artist. (A surprising number of infrequently-listened-to CDs fell into this category and I decided to keep them all.)
4) The artist autographed the CD for me. This situation made me feel more kindly toward any CD, and both this rule and #3 reminded me that music or any form of creative expression is, at heart, about the connection between one person and another. Sometimes the product is secondary.
I finished my task quickly (I had tried to do this about six months ago, become overwhelmed by the task and chickened out) packaged up all the CDs and walked them over to the store. (For the record--ha!--I got rid of 47 CDs on that shelf of unlistened-to's, and I kept 68.)
+++
Today I was shopping at Value Village (again...) when a woman approached a man behind me in the checkout line, noticing the stuff he was about to buy.
"Oh! Do they sell CDs here?" she asked.
"Yep," he responded, "there's two whole racks of 'em over there."
She eagerly rushed over to the CD racks, and immediately picked up a couple of CDs that I had donated a few days ago.
+++
I'm hoping to get out to the subway this week because the weather is turning fabulous. However, the kids are off school for March Break and it would be unthinkable to bring them with me. (I suddenly realize that I saw a woman do this at Christmas. I suspect she was busking on the subway without a permit. She had her two school-age children with her, looking waif-like. I did not donate.)
Despite how rewarding I find subway singing, both spiritually and financially, it's still hard for me to affirm that it's part of my Career (capital C). If I looked at it as a necessity, like a regular office job for instance, I'd arrange childcare and probably pay for it. As things are, I'll call my mother-in-law tomorrow and see if she can look after the kids for half a day this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment