The Move

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I've moved about 10 to 12 times in my adult life and about three or four times as a kid. There's a part of me that loves the preparation for it--I like to get rid of things and so have satisfaction in saying good bye to random stuff like this stupid magazine rack from IKEA that I've been hauling around from place to place for too long. Like, I don't even have one magazine subscription, so what's the point? For the last 3 years, it's pretty much been a repository for yarn. Balls of yarn from my yarn-balling days, which are long gone, so we will bid farewell to those skeins too. Books...I have lots of books, including about 25 journals. I will part with books too, but that's the one area in life that I don't insist on cleaning house. If I have an emotional attachment to the book (such as my copy of A Girl of the Limberlost, which my grandma gave me when I was young. It has her slanted and neat handwriting in the cover), I keep it. However, I am starting to wonder if I need to hold on to this copy of the complete works of Shakespeare that I've had for too long. How many times have I paused, mid-step, pondering the name of the island monster in The Tempest, and feeling relief as I realize, Hey, I don't have to Google it; I can go upstairs and haul out that giant tome with the thin and rippable pages and find it myself. That has never happened, nor has it been used as a way to prove to others that I'm educated, since it's upstairs, being used as a doorstop, essentially. It goes out today.

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