A Burning Party
Considering that my last meditation, so to speak, was all about looking forward and not backward, it is a bit awkward to observe that I’ve spent a great part of the last few weeks digging through old files and papers in the vain hope of bringing some order to the flotsam that has accumulated during the past forty years. I am happy to say that I have so far managed to stave off the inclination toward hoarding that was once my mother’s secret indulgence, but there are still a few storage bins in the cellar that are suspiciously full of unidentified paper.
I opened one of those bins last week and, sure enough, I discovered a cache of old manuscripts and assorted scribblings, many of them my earliest attempts at uninformed and imitative composition. How strange and in a way, terrifying, to find these sketches again after so many years. I have habitually kept a numbered list of works, both completed and unfinished, since I first began to play at composing, but in all honesty many of the early works have been just titles in an index for a very long time. In spite of the risk of mold and paper mites, I have now spent an hour or two looking through the relics, and I have both good news and bad news.
