Well, here it is. The decision every person pulling up stakes dreads.
What to do with the things we cherish most?
For some people, it is photographs For others, correspondence. For me, it is books.
I have kept almost every book I have ever read. Their contents are part of me. When I lived in this house, I would often re-read passages that popped to mind in the middle of the night when my memory starts doing cartwheels and will calm down only with an appropriate passage. Such as, where is Charles I's head buried?
As a result of my my tome acquisition syndrome, I have books corralled in at least three rooms in the house. What you see above is merely a sampling.
Before anyone says it: yes, I have lived in Mexico for almost four years without having daily access to my collection. And it would be extremely difficult and expensive to send the library south -- where it would quickly disintegrate in the heat and humidity.
So, I need to turn loose and allow the books to find new homes. But where?
My mother has offered to take a few of the biographies and historical books (no fiction, thank you very much). But what happens to the rest?
This is not really an urgent problem. Most of them can stay in the house while it is on the market. But a day of reckoning is coming. Soon.
And if any of you have some good ideas, I could start divesting myself of them while I am in Oregon on this trip.
I am ready to book out.
