Be Brave Project, Day 42; Bookending

I think I've broken the back of this moving job, but then I keep thinking that. . .and discovering how wrong I am. This time, however, as I sit here looking at a denuded bookcase on my left, the eight boxes behind me, the front room filled with more boxes, a shadeless lamp, the confused and increasingly complaining cat--I think I'm right on the ball here.

We shall see.

But it's always a funny thing, moving. Last night I was hauling books from bookshelf #1, when I found a few interesting objects:

-My DayRunner from 1999. With no days in it, torn back, old addresses and drunken notes scrawled on pastel colored paper in the back. Why did I keep this? What sentimental purpose could there have been? No Idea.

-A series of books on the Greatest Crime Films Ever. Bound in stiff cardboard that could snap like a matchstick, written in greasy cheap ink. And I don't like crime films. Why keep. . .?

-One excellent book (John Fowles' The Collector), a psychologically astute and deeply creepy story by a first rate writer--with the cover removed and the pages so loose that you can't turn them or they'll fall like a shower of confetti. Why keep a book you can't read?

Everytime you move--and this is my 6th move since 2000--you are sorting and tossing out a variation of you, the person you were when living in this space. The person you wanted to be, or hoped to be, or couldn't escape somehow. If you skip the sorting process and simply place everything in a box you miss the (only) educative and enjoyable melancholy aspect of moving--what has and hasn't happened since you lived here.

This is the only time in life you're actually going to spend a few minutes looking at that French book from 10th grade, or the yearbook you've carefully saved and occasionally used as a bug-killer.

It is interesting. As I said, it's a bit sad for some reason. Tempus fugit and all of that. . .but most important is to keep my eyes on the prize. Monday Night: Vietnamese food. And a lovely lovely bubble bath in my new apartment. . . Worth it.