20,000 books over the sea

My dreams of late have started to reflect the growing space that moving/grad school/meeting new people is taking up in my mind.  Last night I dreamt about trying desperately not to be late to sign up for classes at Tufts; the night before that, it was all about going to my high school reunion and meeting up with people who knew me as I was in high school, which is to say a very different person than I am now.  As I told my brother recently, I’m not exactly worried about grad school, just conflicted.  I’m sure I’ve said this before, but on the one hand I’m sad about leaving Angus and our home (despite not anticipating missing Gloucester at all), and shocked at how fast the time is going and how little time we have left.  On the other hand, though, I now have a project, a plan, something to DO, and I’m desperate to start it.  I get really antsy if I feel like I know what I want to do but can’t do it right now, and that’s pretty much the situation I find myself in.

Longer-term worries are also on my mind.  Specifically, Portland.  Angus and I intend to move there after I graduate.  In addition to all the worries about whether or not he’ll like it enough to be happy there for a number of years, I worry that things will have changed for me.  Pretty much since I moved there ten years ago, Portland has been home.  No matter how far away I’ve taken myself, Portland has been in my mind daily, and in my heart as this kind of lodestone, somewhere that I’m working my way back to, no matter how circuitously.  Yet I know it’s changing.  I’ve visited a number of times in the years since I first moved to France, and thus far I still have enough in common with it to have the sense of home unchanged.  But what if that’s not the case after grad school?  Two years can do a lot, both to a person and to a city.  I know that this probably seems ridiculous to worry about from an outsider’s perspective, but Portland has been a fixture of my internal landscape for the entirety of my self-aware, semi-adult existence.  The occasional thought that it might be a mirage around which I have constructed a detailed map… well, it worries me.

In more external news, I’m still trying desperately to get through my huge “to read” pile before I leave.  I’ve finished three books in the last week and a half, but it’s still going to be a push to get it all done before the end of August.  I don’t want to have to take too many books to Boston – I intend to mail myself a box of books that might be useful for grad school and to rely on the Boston Public Library for any fun reading that I might have the chance to do.

We took two large boxes – well, a large box and a laundry hamper, really – of books and miscellaneous stuff to a charity shop this last weekend.  That’s my first set of stuff to be getting rid of completely; Jaime took a suitcase-full of things I need for Boston back with her last week, bless her.  I’m trying to consolidate everything I own in the house into my office (clothes excepting), so that I know exactly how much I have to go through and sort.  It’s a struggle; I’ve accumulated so much stuff over the last few years!  That’s one good thing about moving again – owning so much stuff makes me feel twitchy from time to time.  Particularly the books. 

WHY do I own so many books when there are libraries?  And why can’t I bring myself to get rid of more of them?  Even if I limit myself to keeping either signed copies (my Bill Bryson and Jeffrey Sachs and Jasper Fforde) or to copies of books that I read more than once a year (Pride and Prejudice and LOTR and Jane Eyre) or to favorite series (His Dark Materials and Harry Potter and The Dark is Rising and The Fionavar Tapestry and the Thursday Next series) or books that have emotional import for me (i.e. gifts and/or books written by family members and friends)… well, as you can guess, it adds up.

I guess that I could get rid of Harry Potter… and LOTR… But… but… I have matched sets!  (Well, not for LOTR.  In fact, it’s a mammoth, totally unwieldy three-in-one volume, so I have little qualms about getting rid of that.) … You see what I mean?  It’s a genetic problem, as anyone who’s ever been to my mom’s house will testify.  It’s also a potentially-misplaced sense of economy.  I’ve already spent the money to buy these books, so part of me feels like it couldn’t possibly be economically sensible to get rid of them.  It depends on how much international shipping costs, I guess.  ::sigh::  Or I could ask Angus to stick several books into his luggage each time he comes to visit and bring them over little by little…  That might work!  ::shakes herself by the scruff of the mental neck::  If I have Angus bring over too many books, that’s just more stuff to move again in two years, which adds to the real cost of ownership.  I’m always going on about people taking total cost into consideration when considering environmental questions, so why am I not doing so with my books and stuff?  I really, really should cut everything down to those things that are either useful on a daily basis (my clothes) or truly irreplaceable (mementoes, books with emotional/historical import for me, etc.)  Never mind that I have a complete set of English-edition Harry Potters.  I can get the series again, and I’m not a book collector, interested in different editions or covers.  I have books because I read them, by and large!  If I can just as easily read them from a library, what’s the point of owning them?

Books and clothes, books and clothes.  My two main problems, at least as far as moving and living compactly are concerned.  And, as the contradictions in what I have written demonstrate, books are the worst, really.  I feel laden down if I own too many of them, yet I can’t seem to do more than slightly stem my urge to buy them, nor can I easily bring myself to get rid of them once I have them!  Grr.  Argh.