Repacking My Library

On Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library" and moving all my goddamn books

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash

Moving is a great way to get rid of stuff. The calculus becomes very simple: do I really want to pack that up? Do I really want to lug it to my next life? In this latest round of shedding I’ve gotten rid of a good amount of clothes, linens, utensils, unitools that aren’t even being used for their one task, novelty glasses, the remnants of my bar cart, and what I thought were a lot of books. I made a cocktail I found on Reddit called “Grandma Still Smokes Cigarettes” to get rid of both a bottle of Cynar and a bottle of mezcal – it tasted like an old Midwestern barstool seat, perfect – and even that made a bigger dent in the packing total than what I thought was a big cull of my books. I was ruthless! I filled a big bag with books I was never going to read – some that had been sitting on the to-be-read shelf since before my wife and I started even dating – and a bunch of books I had read and not enjoyed all that much, and any duplicate copies my wife and I had (thanks again, Breaking and Entering), and it turned out to be merely a drop in the bucket. The little free library by my place had never been so graced; heck, I even threw some cookbooks in there too. I checked in periodically to see what the neighborhood had grabbed and what the neighborhood had left behind, though they were all gone within days. Scores of books, gone just like that. But boxes and boxes and boxes are left, and goddamnit, I will bring them.