Love Bites: On Old Bread

I’m not good at throwing things out. I keep torn receipts, empty envelopes, and broken glasses with old prescriptions. My drawers are filled with expired loyalty cards, high school textbooks I forgot to return, and flyers from insignificant events.

It’s not that I’m nostalgic. I’m bad at reflecting, or remembering things how they happened. I look back and don’t care like I used to. I can’t fill in the blank spots. I’ve lost touch with the versions of myself that first picked up these objects, as well as a lot of the people who gave them to me. 

Last month, I came back from a trip to Marseille too lazy and preoccupied to unpack. Days passed. I picked out what I needed as and when. Eventually I tipped out my bag, and found the remains of a half torn baguette from a sunset picnic, rock hard, and wrapped up in faded paper. 

It was probably ten days old. The thud to the floor felt ominous. I knew there would be mould. My impulse was to keep it: to file it away in a cupboard or a box under the bed. But filing away mould would mean things had gone too far.    

I wanted to keep the bread because I wanted to remember the supermarket where I bought it, the sea port where I ate it, the rats and tourists and locals who moved along the path, and that by the time the sunset picnic started, it was already dark. I want to keep it all. Without the bread I’ll forget. Bread is perhaps my limit though, so I threw it out. 

I’m not convinced my memories will dry up any less without these objects, but I still, as a general rule, believe there’s some way to keep everything forever.