Life moves pretty fast

The south facing Velux window nestled in the angled roof of the bathroom, had always been the best place in the house to assess the weather from. These past three evenings, the raindrops had popped heavily against the outer pane of glass precipitating unseen from a moonless night sky. Their rhythm was chaotic, not that of a Disney April shower. The chill they carried from dense clouds, led to an inverse bell curve of condensation forming on the inner pane of the window, as if sprayed on from a Christmas snow can. From the warmth of the interior, these myriad droplets reflected the cold white of a streetlamp in the car park of the residential home behind the house, its brightness forming a multitude of Bailey’s Beads on the rim of each little droplet.

Despite the rain, the world seemed quiet. This February had thus far represented a return to a familiar pace. Work was moving fast. Days were long and everyone was engaged and attempting to be agile in a way that January days simply didn’t produce. But as the evenings arrived, he felt the energy of the day dissipate in the cold winds of the walk home. Winter was still very much in the air and home represented a cozy sanctuary holding warm food and a comfortable moleskin finished sofa on which to settle.

As he reclined into the cushions next to the tangerine glow of the fireplace, with its ember effect from filtered LEDs, there came a moment on each of these evenings when that quietness became clear. In many ways it was welcome. That moment of respite for tired eyes and a busy mind. But despite incoming text messages and the dipping in and out of a tv show comedy or two, there was level of loneliness that could not be ignored. He missed his wife on occasions like this almost more acutely than at any other time. It is the end of day simplicity of connection over food and tv shows when you’re both tired and require rest, that is the underpinning of any long-term relationship. He gazed at her picture and sighed. And then smiled because her smile was always transcendent of any other emotion.

Next to her photo sat his Christmas present to himself. As a child of the digital generation, the vinyl record had represented an older analogue time that seemed out of place. The contradictory purview of the exceptionally cool DJ or the backward-looking Luddite. Only at Christmas time did records get played regularly as part of the tradition in the family home.

Vinyl had been replaced, firstly with CDs in the late 80s and early 90s, then MP3s and eventually Spotify in the pantheon of his music entertainment sources. However, it had become clear recently that having the ability to play an LP would in fact be both useful and a pleasant way to engage the beardy, hipster nostalgia that seemed ever increasingly attractive in this part of mid-life – along with the appreciation of a fine pale ale and a flattering waistcoat.

The first use of the turntable had been to address that usefulness and bridge the gap between the analogue and digital, by using it’s USB connection to rip two family favourite albums onto his PC. These were unavailable in the digital realms for reasons unknown, but Christmas had included conversations about their importance within the family story and thus, to back up this format so prone to wear and tear, it seemed prudent to download, zip and circulate copies for the family.

But what next? That activity was very much a one off and definitely did not seem to justify the expense. He had thought about where he was in his musical journey and the aforementioned nostalgia. Hence, certain artists had come to mind for their apparent vinyl “suitability”. A trip to the local independent record store, (because also at this age, the socially responsible choice of supporting a local business over the online giants, provided a warm fuzzy feeling of being community minded), and a purchase of a copy of the excellent A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead and he was up and running on a new little musical adventure.

More purchases had followed, including The Cure’s Greatest Hits, Belle and Sebastian’s seminal The Boy With The Arab Strap and Portishead’s first two classic Trip-Hop defining albums, to provide a modest choice of mood setting options.

Hence, one by one they had been played on these cold, quiet evenings, forcing movement from the sofa to turn them over and run the dust cloth over the heavy grooves of the shining black surfaces. There was also a moment where he realised that he had not quite adopted going to back to vinyl completely, as an interruption kicked in muscle memory that made him look for a non-existent pause button!

But, as he rested in the corner of the sofa these past evenings, the turntable spinning, the analogue click and hiss of uncompressed sounds coming from the Bluetooth speakers, (because there had to be a digital component in there somewhere), the concurrent white noise of the cold rain on the windows was pushed to the background. He enjoyed the music and his latest page turner of a book, the frankly bizarre and fascinating XX (twenty) by Rian Hughes, and it occurred to him that, like the needle of that record player, he was settled back in a groove.

A smile came to his lips as he returned to the book and let his imagination engage with the evening around him.