My brother calls and tells me he found two crates of CDs. “Stuff you’d like.” he says. It sounds like an accusation. I need CDs like I need a whole in my head, but I was intrigued.

A few weeks later, I attend my nephew’s birthday. We sing “Happy Birthday” and take a video as he blows out all three candles on his cake. Afterwards he gleefully tears into his presents with a little help from his older sister. “Walter, you need to do it like this … “

Before I leave, my brother hauls out two plastic milk crates overflowing. He tosses some on the floor. “Sonic Youth? Pavement? Smashing Pumpkins? Lucious Jackson? Who really likes this shit?” Well, I did, once. That music was the soundtrack of early 20s.

“Take em or they’re going in the trash.” I load the crates into my car. On the way back, I play Siamese Dream. Then I play it again, LOUD. It feels like being inside an erupting volcano. The power of music and nostalgia.

Days later, I’ll go through the crates more slowly. Lot of music here. Some in good condition, some clearly worn and scratched. It’s more than just a collection. It reveals. Who owned it? Male or Female? Female I think. The Lilith Faire compilation, Erykah Badu, and the Sarah McLachlan CDs are the giveaway. This is almost exclusively music from the 1990s, so that would the owner mid-forties I think. A record store label on some of them suggest they were bought in the UK. So … a British woman (white) in her forties, now living in NH, with a deep abiding love of Cake (five CDs – they were around long enough to produce five albums?), Sonic Youth (six CDs), Yo La Tengo (seven CDs), and John Mellancamp (nine CDs). Nine CDs?! OK, obviously obsessive. There is a sense I’m reading someone’s diary.

I remember meeting people and feeling an urge to peruse their selection of music. A brief scan could impart something about who they were and if I were honest, an opportunity to judge. Broad assumptions aside, really what I wanted to learn is … where are they unique, and what do we have in common. If we shared a taste in something obscure – a Bach Cello concerto, a melancholy Nick Drake song, or angular alt-pop number, then what else would we .. could we share? Something deeper, perhaps? Something more … meaningful?

It probably says something about my life that I relish this rare opportunity for intimacy with someone I will never meet … by way of a couple hundred old CDs left at a recycling center in a small, quaint New Hampshire town.