Jul
25
Back in MD.
July 25, 2008 |
I’m home now, for a given value of “home,” at least, which means I’m cleaning my butt off. The process of packing makes it clear to me how much stuff I have accumulated, clear in a way it’s not when I’m living spread out. Partially because things aren’t so compressed, partially because I’m a chronically tidy person. So packing gets me agitated about how much crap I’ve got, and by the time it comes around to unpacking I’m ready to try to strip my stuff down and live like an ascetic. This never works, largely because some of my interests require clutter; my interest in art, as an example, encourages my relatives to give me scads of art supplies every Christmas. Because I tend to stick to pen or pencil on paper or maybe oil paints, most of this stuff sits around in drawers and boxes. Each time I scrape more of it away, send it off to Goodwill or related franchises, but so far I haven’t scraped enough away. Same with cooking; though I fetch most of my recipes from the internet or my grandmother’s repository people nonetheless seem compelled to give me cookbooks. Books in general are a problem, too, of course, and every time I come home with more books I instantly bundle some of the older ones into a box to go to the family storage unit. (My tastes have changed and matured since I’ve started doing this, and I fear opening the earlier boxes to be confronted with my own past missteps.)
This agitation was really only exacerbated this time; because there’s some work being done on the family room downstairs and my parents’ bathroom upstairs, all my stuff that had stayed peacefully in the den for years has been moved up into my room. So it’s a struggle not to freak out a little; clutter bothers me. It’s fine in spaces I’m not responsible for, and often charming when it’s someone else’s. But when it’s my clutter in the room where I spend most of my time, it truly grates. So today and tonight will be an ordered frenzy of deciding what I don’t need. Incidentally I have more blank books than the population of some small countries, so if anyone needs any…
I had a carefully sketched out plan of what I was going to read during my four week break before fall semester starts up again but I’ve already broken it. I came home to a copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on my desk and to my shame have already started it. But The Bluest Eye is really next, really really, I promise.
One great perk to being home (and what originally brought me to post here) is that I’ve got access to my library now. So here is a poem from Lia Purpura’s The Brighter the Veil which I truly love.
Today On My Walk
Today on my walk I kissed the cold air.
The pursing up was familiar, dear.
The store window caught and held the trace
of a shrinking, foggy moon on glass.
When I turned, the wind lifted a crazy bouquet–
it took and rode my breath away.
Today on my walk, I kissed the cold air.
I made a bouquet because you were not there.
—
EDIT: Was doing a quick proofread and wow. Ordered frenzy? Careful sketch? Milton really has rubbed off on me.
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