Love this Brian. You put into words what I suspect many of us grapple with throughout life... trying our best to do great things, to contribute greatly to this world, while it often feels like pushing a rock uphill. In the end, it seems to me that all most of us can do, is to be present to those we meet in this tapestry of life. Our presence is the one gift we always have the opportunity to give.
I wonder often what will happen to my books ... what I want to happen to them. The academic stuff I'll unload next time we move, whenever that is. I learned what I learned and I'm never going to revisit them.
The "professional" stuff is also not hard. The kids will keep what they want, recycle the rest. Those books (shelves of them) helped me become the person, friend and coach I am. They did their job.
It's the Books I Love that are hard to think about. No one will care for my first editions of Louis May Alcott, the disintegrated first copies of Pride & Prejudice, Caddie Woodlawn, Middlemarch, A Room With A View and others, that I've already replaced but still won't give up. They are part of me. And so, I guess, thinking about what happens to them when I'm gone is inseparable from thinking about being gone, one day, and that's hard.
So very true for all of this. I imagine myself in some great bookstore filled with formerly well-loved books, like Powell's Books in Portland, OR. Wandering around Powell's is like living in a dream to me. Or, perhaps having all these books is like being in the stacks at a great University, such as Sterling Memorial Library at Yale. When I was a freshman there, I would often hang out and read whatever was within reach.
I don't really care what happens to me after I am gone. So, I guess I have to look out for the people who must "clean up" after me, which makes these efforts so important — to pare down and eventually eliminate.
Love this Brian. You put into words what I suspect many of us grapple with throughout life... trying our best to do great things, to contribute greatly to this world, while it often feels like pushing a rock uphill. In the end, it seems to me that all most of us can do, is to be present to those we meet in this tapestry of life. Our presence is the one gift we always have the opportunity to give.
I wonder often what will happen to my books ... what I want to happen to them. The academic stuff I'll unload next time we move, whenever that is. I learned what I learned and I'm never going to revisit them.
The "professional" stuff is also not hard. The kids will keep what they want, recycle the rest. Those books (shelves of them) helped me become the person, friend and coach I am. They did their job.
It's the Books I Love that are hard to think about. No one will care for my first editions of Louis May Alcott, the disintegrated first copies of Pride & Prejudice, Caddie Woodlawn, Middlemarch, A Room With A View and others, that I've already replaced but still won't give up. They are part of me. And so, I guess, thinking about what happens to them when I'm gone is inseparable from thinking about being gone, one day, and that's hard.
So very true for all of this. I imagine myself in some great bookstore filled with formerly well-loved books, like Powell's Books in Portland, OR. Wandering around Powell's is like living in a dream to me. Or, perhaps having all these books is like being in the stacks at a great University, such as Sterling Memorial Library at Yale. When I was a freshman there, I would often hang out and read whatever was within reach.
I don't really care what happens to me after I am gone. So, I guess I have to look out for the people who must "clean up" after me, which makes these efforts so important — to pare down and eventually eliminate.