Minutia

Twelve years in one place and the bits and pieces of a life really accumulate. I have reached a point of total satiety. I need major, big time fung shui or something akin to that. I need to clean out and organize. I cannot stand the boxes and boxes of "stuff" lying around anymore. The piles of books on the floor and in the closets. The flotsam and jetsam of many years, hidden in those boxes, some with lids on, some open. I am throwing away stuff, recycling magazines and giving away books the past few weeks. Boxes and boxes. It's painful, yet I know it must be done.

I need to free up space on my shelves for books that I treasure and know I want to keep. Since I am a compulsive book buyer -- new and used -- there is no giving it up altogether. I like to know books are there, unread repositories of knowledge, deep thought, humor, lives lived, science explored, pasts recalled, society documented in photographs. All this wealth of knowledge and yet I know I can never read or know but a fraction of what is there. It's easier to sit on the computer and wile away the hours on the Internet, the modern-day multimedia, entertainment, commucation device/drug that cradles me in it's cocoon and shuts out the immediate world in favor of one lived in cyberspace.

But leaving cyberspace I am confronted everywhere in my immediate, four-room physical environment with the saved objects that, daily over the years, accumulate and which, upon inspection with the intent to get rid of, remind me of the life I have lived, the tiniest and most concrete souvenirs and valued papers, clippings, photos, and "objects" which for one reason or another have lasted and endured, even if never looked at or thought about them for years.

Still, like the unread books in piles overflowing on the floor beneath the full bookshelves, these "documents" and objects form the patchwork quilt that is the continuing narrative of my life. I discard these things at some subtle level of psychic peril, with regret and with the pain of loss, but with resignation that once I have looked them over and decided what to throw away, there is no going back.. small parts of me are gone forever. This is one reason the sudden loss of all ones precious keepsakes in a flood or fire is so devastating. Not just photo albums, but a lifetime of memories called to mind by the simple, ordinary things we acquire and hesitate to part with, help us to know who we are now. They are in a sense, part of our identity.

I share with you now just one tny corner of this world of objects, papers and books that I am surrounded by, in this instance the contents of an inverted boxtop, one of those lids that seal security storage boxes. This lies on top of two sealed boxes, whose contents are unknown to me.

*** a beautiful Zen wall calendar from 2004 with magical quotations and black and white photos of great beauty and profundity.

*** A copy fo Yahoo Internet Life magazine from June 2000.

*** A 2007 Nature Conservancy wall calendar that I took down just the other week, I think because there were already two other calendars on the dining room walls.

*** A copy of Natural Awakenings Healthy Living Magazine for June 2007

*** The National Geographic Special Publications book, "Raging Forces: Life on a Violent Planet," just what I need to see as hurricane season enters its busiest two months here on the the coast of South Carolina.

*** Two old Life magazines, collectors' issues I am sure, from December 1966 and November 1970. The cover story on one was "The Draft: Who Beats it and How" and the cover on the other is, Co-ed Dorms: An Intimate Revolution on Campus." I found these at the used books place and will not be tossing them any time soon. These are a chronicle of life during the time of my youth.

*** A John Ford Clymer painting that is the cover of an issue of the old Saturday Evening Post magazine, a bucolic country scene, sentimental and romanticized.

*** A solicitation from the American Diabetes Association.

*** A photo copy of an article from an old magazine about books titled, "Books Carve Your Character."

** A brochure for Charleston's Piccolo Spoleto Festival with a magnificent photo of Angel Oak on the cover.

*** A picture of a landscape at sunset on fund-raising material from the Southern Environmental Law Center.

*** A photo of my favorite barbecue buffet restaurant way out in the country.

*** A thank you card from someone I helped at work in February 2006.

*** A state Audubon Society newsletter from March 2006.

*** A Nature Conservancy newsletter

*** Copies of articles printed from the Internet back in March 2006: one about "Peak Oil" in Salon.com; another on Leo Strauss, the father of neoconservativsm; an interview on Working for Change with Erik Reece about strip mining in Appalachia; and a copy of the poem "To a Skylark" by Percy Shelley ("Hail to thee, blyhe spirit!/Bird thou never wert,/That from Heaven or near it,/Pourest thy full heart/In profuse strains of unpremeditated art...."

*** More newspaper clippings and a brochure for the "South Carolina Birds: A Fine Arts Exhibition" held at the City Gallery in Charleston in April 2006.

*** A 2005 Texas Highways wall calendar.

*** The book, "Standing Up Country: The canyon lands of Utah and Arizona."

*** A photo greeting card I bought at the farmer's market of a beach scene with sea oats.

*** At the bottom, a travel pack of antibacterial hand and face wipes (Wet Ones) and an unopened package of Dr. Scholl's corn removers. (Just in case)