When we purchased our humble home here in the southern-most Pocono mountains, I moved with me 54 boxes of books. Fiction, biography, science, science-fiction, history, social sciences... You name it, I have a book on the topic. While there was much grumbling as box after box was first loaded--and then unloaded--most of it was overlooked. After all, it was a short walk to the truck, a relatively short drive in the truck, and then into the new home--all from both first floors... I was ecstatic and dreamed of walls upon walls of bookcases, filled with the colorful covers, both hardcover and soft, of my beloved books...As I sat here tonight, opening box after box of the books that never quite made it onto a shelf anywhere, I was elated as I perused some of my titles that I hadn't realized I had missed...
Of course, I'm going through them with the sole purpose of whittling this stack of 54 boxes to about five or six... That is, if I can convince Richard that these are must-have titles.
Don't get me wrong--he isn't twisting my arm. In fact, he has yet to bring them up himself! But I have to be realistic--most of what we have will not make the cut of much-loved or much-needed for a move to the bottom of the East Coast. Let's face it, no one in their right mind would take a completely filled U-haul 2,000 miles when they know they might not have a house that first week, never mind that much of it may not fit into the new home, depending on what we find or what we can afford! But there I sat for hours, carefully pulling out title after title, flipping through each one, remembering the joy I found between it's covers...
The Hobbit, The Color of Water, An American Gardner, Kinds of Minds... Book after book lovingly cared for with little to no cover damage, spine wear, page tearing... Sure, there are a few that you can tell have been read more than twenty to thirty times, but most of them I read with trembling hands, careful not to break the spine, keeping the dust jacket on the shelf until the book was read cover to cover, book markers used meticulously to prevent page damage or crinkles... (One might think I'm a bit anal...!)
So when Rich came home this evening to find me surrounded by boxes upon boxes of books... Well...
The culling has begun, ladies and gentlemen... But when all is said and done, and I move my eight or nine boxes of books to the Sunshine State, it will be like icing all over again...
Rich: What are you doing?
Me: Searching for buried treasure--what does it look like I'm doing? Cleaning out my ears?
Rich: (rueful smile) You don't have to... You know...
Me: I know, but... Honestly, I'm not sure I even feel like moving this many books, much as I love them...
Rich: What about...? (he jerks a thumb behind him toward my desk...)
Me: What about it?
Rich: You know that's not going, don't you?
Me: But... It was my dads! It's a great desk!
Rich: It's also huge!
Me: It's not that big... (Okay, okay, it is that big--almost 6 feet long by almost three feet deep and all metal... but...)
Rich: We could get a pretty penny for it at the scrap yard.
Me: To begin with, if we don't take it, it will first be offered to my siblings and my dad--
Rich: He won't want that monstrosity back!
Me: --and secondly, what if I can't bear to part with it? You can't leave it behind then!
Rich: Wanna bet?
Me: You know, I'm beginning to think this whole move to Florida is solely motivated by your loathing for my desk...
Rich: Not solely...
Me: Oh, no?
Rich: It's really just kind of like icing...
Me: Is that so?
Rich: A bonus, if you will...
Me: If I have to get rid of that desk, I'm keeping more of these books than I originally thought...
Rich: What?
Me: Think of it as a bonus of sorts... Like icing...
Rich: (smiling) I like icing! Speaking of, want some ice cream?
Me: What the hell--(casually tossing Search for the Cradle on top of the box I just removed it from)--I deserve a break.
Rich: Consider it a bonus for all your work...
And this time, there will be shelves... And the books, the icing...
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