Photo: Kate Walter

“When a reporter from the New York Times real estate section came to interview me about my rental apartment in Westbeth Artists Housing, she couldn’t help but notice my hundreds of CDs stacked in tall towers and stored in an open cabinet. At this point, I hadn’t played any CDs in over a year, so why did I still have so many piled up in my small loft? Was it time for a purge?
“Do you listen to them?” asked the scribe who appeared to be in her 30s. Was she judging me as a boomer stuck with dated technology? Or was I overreacting? I liked that she was using a notebook, as opposed to recording our talk.

These musical artists were like my close friends and therapists combined. “Yes, I do,” I said, a bit defensively. But that was before my CD player broke and before I finally converted and started streaming music from my computer and bought a Bluetooth speaker to stream music from my iPhone.

At this point, I hadn’t played any discs in over a year, so why did I still have so many piled up in my small loft? Was it time for a purge? But who could I lose? These musical artists were like my close friends and therapists combined. Their voices soothed me and lifted me up and brought back memories….”

Read the entire article on line at Next Avenue

Home page photo: Kate Walter