24 November 2013

Chance conjunction of the day

The conjunction came from a song lyric and a book fragment, within not very minutes of each other.
The song lyric came first; it was playing as I worked on the text of an article about statistical testing:
She was physically forgotten,
Then she slipped into my pocket
With my car keys.
She said “You've taken me for granted
Because I pleased you...”1
I was hungry so, when the track finished, paused the player and put aside the article for a while to get a bite to eat. Filling the gastric gap with a sandwich from my right hand, I picked up the book with my left to give my mind a brief change of scene as well. The book was an old favourite (in fact, I find that I already referenced this same line from it, earlier this year ... I'm getting repetitive) which is, to embroider the conjunction (or to suggest that am stuck in a particular past), very close to being coeval with the song:
There’s a photograph of an olive tree among the stones on my desk; when Luise left she wrote on the back of it: “I trusted you with the idea of me and you lost it”.2
It's so easy to take someone for granted and lose the idea of them ... not just a significant other, but oneself and (the thought that occurred to me in this case) those friends more removed as well.

  1. Paul Simon, "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes" on Graceland, 1986
  2. Russell Hoban, The Medusa Frequency Ch.3. 1987, London: Cape. ISBN 0224024647

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