{"id":5,"date":"2005-09-11T15:10:36","date_gmt":"2005-09-11T20:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/astra\/2005\/09\/11\/one-heart-used-for-sale\/"},"modified":"2005-09-11T15:10:36","modified_gmt":"2005-09-11T20:10:36","slug":"one-heart-used-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/2005\/09\/11\/one-heart-used-for-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"One heart, used, for sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

\nLooking through pages and pages of Craigslist furniture postings this
\nmorning, I started to wonder about the stories behind the “for sale”
\nads. Why is she selling that brand new queen bed, still in its
\nplastic wrappings? Why is he in such a hurry to move out of state that
\nhe’s selling the futon at that dirt-cheap price? Why are they trying to
\nsell the car, explaining that they’d purchased a new minivan? There are
\nbound to be happy stories – marriage, a desired relocation,
\ngraduation, a child on the way, as well as sad stories – children
\nmoving away, divorce, breakup, going out of business. <\/p>\n

Imagine people
\nready with warm greetings at the front door, joking with the visitors,
\nflaunting their joy at their good fortune with an ease that, when
\nprodded carefully, could translate into a great deal for hungry bargain
\nhunters. Picture people masking the hurt in their eyes as they watch
\nstrangers scrutinize their possessions, barter, argue amongst each
\nother, and finally haul away the objects that may very well be the last
\nphysical fragments of a shattered dream. So don’t be so quick to judge
\nthat gruff old man or snappish young lady who makes you want to stomp
\naway, muttering, “I would consider buying it if you weren’t so damn
\nrude” … who knows what things burden their hearts? <\/p>\n

The lyrics of this song, which I stumbled across months ago, are
\nsophomoric. (I haven’t listened to the song, I believe it hasn’t been
\nreleased.)
\nBut there’s one part that painfully resonates:<\/p>\n

no matter how close<\/span>
\nno one really knows the fire that grows<\/span>
\nif i could only show you something real this time<\/span>
\nin spite of all the emptiness i feel inside<\/span>
\n’cause all i ask of you this time<\/span>
\nis look beyond the things i said that didn’t shine<\/span>
\ntry to understand the shades of grey<\/span>
\nall of my mistakes<\/span>
\nand turn them into colors of a better time<\/span>
\nit’s blind sometimes what gets me through the day<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

   
\n          – Ken Oak, “Intangible”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking through pages and pages of Craigslist furniture postings this morning, I started to wonder about the stories behind the “for sale” ads. Why is she selling that brand new queen bed, still in its plastic wrappings? Why is he in such a hurry to move out of state that he’s selling the futon at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":745,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/745"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/astra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}