Lists, and More Lists

Well, I have one remaining bookshelf to confront. That's not true. I have one shelf of the bookshelf I cataloged yesterday and one entire bookshelf. This is an impossible task, really. Or it is for me. I am forever opening a book, something I'd read years ago, and reading a page or so. That then makes me want to go to another book by the same author, which is in another room. Or worse, it ends up in my growing pile of books to savor this summer or to send to New York. I realize I should have done such a thing years ago. Why, you may ask given my obsessive nature and, newly discovered, ADD. It's clear I would, should never work in a library since I would end up in the same stack for hours on end as I pore over T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets again. Or, I should have worked in a library, but I would have been fired for being so easily distracted and for disappearing endlessly. But given the gentle nature of librarians, they would sit me down to explain why working in a library was not the best job suited for my easily distracted nature.

My husband did ask me why I was obsessed with the need to make this list. I didn't have an answer that would take away that look of concern mixed with alarm on his face. But it's now apparent to me why I've been obsessed about this list. It's the one thing that I feel in control of. Does that make sense to anyone? Everything in my life feels a bit like the haphazard piles, ever growing, that now take up half the floor of my office. And this time spent poring over my books--my mom has threatened to ship the other part of the collection housed at her house all these years--makes those piles fade away. It is the only time when the frenzy inside my head seems to calm down. And so, that is why this task, which should have taken all of one afternoon, has dragged on for a week. It allows me the space to quiet and to reflect on what is ahead, what I'm leaving behind, and what all of it means, will mean to me and my family.

It's no surprise that books have, again, become my refuge and salvation. They have been the one constant in my life. Nothing reassures me more than a pile of books--yes, there is never just one book, but a pile--on the bedside table. The biography of Michel Foucault, which dissects his life in relation to his work and writings, is a book that I have been reading for 7 years. Yes, 7 years. The book is quite dense, as are his works for those who are familiar, so that consuming more than 10 pages at a time is all I can muster. It is now in that pile to be sent to New York. And I have vowed to finish it this upcoming year.

I will end today's post with Eliot.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation...

One of my tutors in London, now quite a well-known literary critic, wrote a critical study about this particular poem. When I was studying with him we were reading Shakespeare. We adored one another as student/teacher, both a bit nutty, obsessive, and in love with language. The best story of our time together is how I made him sit in line overnight with me to purchase tickets to see Daniel Day Lewis perform Hamlet. So, there we were, huddled with others, drinking coffee, making jokes about how insane all of this was. The wait was well worth it since our seats were second row orchestra. The night of the performance, David ran into a mate of his from Cambridge, I believe, who was an actor with the RSC. For some reason, David volunteered his ticket next to me for his friend's seat much farther back. He later explained that he could hear the audible gasps, coming from my seat, hence the reason for the seat change since he knew I would embarrass him in my adolescent idolatry of Day Lewis. I only just recently purchased his book dissecting this poem. I think it ironic that this piece resonates with both of us. And yes, his critical book is on my pile bound for New York.