Vibrating within the ear are many voices but their origin has a source which may be called the sound of no sound... -- Takuan Soho

Reading: Fire and Hemlock, Diane Wynne Jones

Listening to: The Chieftans, Tears of Stone

July 23, 1999

Useful Information

I am moving within the next four months. I have been living in my parents' condo for the last seven years or so. I pay all the bills, so I do think of it as my place, but it isn't, really. I'm there to provide a waystation for Mom and Dad in their travels. They have decided that it is time for them to move to their retirement place in Florida, which means the condo is going on the market.

I hate the idea of moving. I look around, and all I can see is more stuff to pack and move or pack and give away or pack and sell. Piles of books abound. I have to go through all the bookshelves and the piles of books and decide what is worth taking and what I can give away or sell. To my mind, since I bought all those books, they are all worth taking, but I can almost guarantee that I won't have nearly enough room for them. I am going from three bedrooms to one or two, depending on what is available and what I can afford.

So culling the books is what I'm doing now, and if I don't stop reading books I "find" in the piles, I will never finish.

If I wanted to examine this behavior more closely, I'd probably conclude that since I don't want to move, I'm finding reasons not to finish this project anywhere I can.

Or, I just really like books. Last weekend I found a copy of Lincoln's Dreams, by Connie Willis. Her first novel. It was like finding an old friend.

I am taking the opportunity to catalog the books that I have. I don't have many "valuable" books -- first editions and the like -- but I do have some, and I should take better care of them and keep better track of them.

I am a packrat. I have this round wicker hamper that has traveled with me through every move I have made. In it are letters (love letters from my first love, bound in a fuzzy pink ribbon), cards, and assorted other keepsakes. Bluebooks from college and high school. An A+ paper I wrote on Cry, the Beloved Country. Ticket stubs and theater programs. Now, I know that I don't need all this stuff. I don't even look at it very often. But I can't bring myself to throw any of it away. If I do, I just know I'm going to want to look at that exam book from "The Comic Novel." Or I am going to want to see what my grades were like during the last semester of my senior year in high school. That round hamper is my time capsule.

I guess I am in the "ignore it and maybe it will go away" phase right now. Maybe I'll win the lottery and I can buy the condo from Mom and Dad and never, ever move again.

It's a little funny to me now to think about how settled I am. When I was younger, I never thought that I would stay in one place for longer than a few years. I wanted to be able to pick up and go at a moment's notice, no responsibilities, no ties, no looking back. Here I am now, wanting to hold on until the last minute to the familiar.

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