Monday, May 6, 2013

BOOKS - SOUL FOOD OR CLUTTER?



Sitting in this recliner I can see at least 16 books sitting in plies on the desk, the table, and the small stand beside my chair.  Included in this haphazard collection are assorted books on religion, psychology, biographies, and art, most of which I read or looked at in the immediate and/or distant past.  I pulled them off the shelves of the bookcase several months ago because I wanted to ….I really don’t know what my intentions were now that I think about it.  It had something to do with re-visiting my “journey” and recapturing the excitement and wonder of those tumultuous years.  I guess I thought looking at those books, some of which played such a critical role at the time, would make that happen.  Of course it didn’t, and I soon abandoned all efforts to do so.  But the books remain out, and for some reason I am reluctant to gather them up and put them back on the top shelves of the bookcase where they have been sitting, out of sight, for so many years.  Perhaps doing so would be a painful reminder to me that there are chapters in our lives that must remain where they are, in the past, and cannot be relived.  They can be remembered, relished or reviled, and can serve as a guide as we navigate the future.  But always they remain part of what was, and what was to be.


My study and studio are endanger of being overrun by books, they are everywhere, and most of them have been read, sometimes more than once, and the remainder have been read “selectively”...another way of saying they have been browsed.  Of course I expect to read them all once more, at some abstract time in the distant future.  Although I know I won’t, it is a fantasy that I hold on to.
Their presence gives me great comfort, a visual reminder of how I have defined myself, assuring me of who I am, accurately or inaccurately, as the case my be.

It sounds good…now it’s time to put the damn things away or they will go from soul food to clutter.

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