Towards the end of my last relationship, I acquired a portable speaker. The timing was fortuitous: there was little opportunity for it to become attached to happy or sad memories from my coupled life. It was one of the few shared objects I kept. And, though it felt awkward to walk away from our decade-long home with what looked like a black box, I was ready to start afresh with it.
In my single life I learned the perks of having a speaker of one’s own. An empty flat with an Ikea mattress and a secondhand fridge might seem dispiriting – until the right Wong Kar-wai soundtrack brought out its indie quality. Space Oddity took the edge off slow wifi days. And Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer lent a certain je ne sais quoi to confrontations with inner-city cockroaches. It was nice to know that however grim things got I could still take charge of the ambience of my life.
