32 Boxes

When Merrystar and I lived in Alexandria, we devoted most of the bottom floor of our townhouse to our library. We had more than 150 linear feet of shelving (mostly Billy from Ikea) but we never, ever had enough.

The bookroom started out as a disaster, which turned into a bookroom, which turned into a library. We enjoyed it as such for the month that the house was on the market and the few weeks that it took to close on the house. That was really it.

Then, there was a moving related purge, and our books were packed into 32 boxes and moved into our new garage. And there they sat.

Bit by bit, Merrystar and I have worked through half of those boxes, but there’s been a dozen or so sitting in the garage for the last five or six months. Sitting. Taunting me. Waiting for something to prompt me to move them.

Like, er, mouse poop. All over the recently-cleaned garage.

So after much cleaning with masks, the remaining dozen boxes were unpacked last night. And the inevitable bibliophilaic crisis ensued. As both Merrystar and I rested, we asked the exact same question:

Why do we need all these books?

There are dozens of books that I want to keep. But there are hundreds that I honestly can’t answer why I have kept them, other than… what, exactly? Sentimentality? Utility? To impress others? (And who would that be, specifically?)

I don’t know if this is a universal crisis that all book collectors go through. Maybe it is, and only the serious ones get through it.

As for us?

I took a half-trunk load of books to the local bookstore today. (Store credit for those they can use, the rest to charity.)

And we’re just getting started.