Before
After
Continuing with my cleaning rampage, I have now tackled my book collection. Although it doesn't really look like it I got rid of almost a hundred books. I've always been an avid reader and an accumulator of books. I feel safer and more at home with books around. I like the way they look. I need to have them at hand. That said, I've also come to the conclusion that I am using them as a shield and an ego prop, so that makes some of them joyless.
I remember from my youngest days hating to be ignorant. Somehow, I figured out early on that knowledge was power, the only kind of power that was in my reach. Ever since then I have gathered up information, with books being the outward sign of what I hoped was in my head. Of course, there is never enough time or brain for everything, and it turned out that my true interests were creative more than intellectual. Creativity has to be practiced, not read about (although I tried that too). Many of my books are a false front, meant to be seen in my bookcase, but not read more than once. Those are the ones that need to be released and I think I have. I took every one out of the case, roughly sorted them by subject, and then put back the ones I love. The Lord of the Rings, the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen leaped back without hesitation. Only about a third of my garden books returned and about half of my books about home and space. Lots of self-help books hit the road, leaving Joseph Campbell and Christoper Alexander with more room to breathe. I had six (six?!!) books by Ken Wilbur, who always made feel like I wasn't quite up to his level of enlightenment. They are gone. The category that I'm surprised I kept is the literature books from my early years in college. I thought they would be show off items, but when I took them in my hand I remembered so clearly the excitement I felt at being able to delve into them and discuss them with others...it was great, so I still have Shakespeare, Dante, Blake, Marlowe, Homer, Petronius, etc. living here at home with me, although all old philosophy and history books hit the bricks. I found Middlemarch, which I thought I would have to re-buy. I love Willa Cather, but I dumped her novel My Mortal Enemy, which was unpleasant, and her collected letters, which was more a marketing ploy of the publishers than an insight into her writing. I could go on and on.
The cleaning of my closet brought out all kinds issues I have struggled with about body image, appearance and femininity. Cleaning my bookcase has exposed my intellectual conceits. I wonder what pocket of inner demons my kitchen utensils will release.