Boxes and Books
Once again I am sitting among boxes, this feels all too familiar. It was only a short year and a half ago that I loaded up Loretta with the basics, boxed the rest and moved to Taos. While at moments painful, the process of shedding felt so very good. I love living the small life because it does not allow room for clutter. And for me clutter is a verb, I can't stop myself, if given the room I will fill it. So, limit the space, limit the stuff. However... there are some things I can not shed. So now, all of those boxes filled with un-shedable necessities are finally here, in New Mexico, lining the back wall of a cerulean blue shipping container that sits at the southeast corner of my land. I have peaked into a few of them, found an old pair of boots, canning stock pot, drawing pencils and books. Lots and lots of books. In fact, the majority of what I carry around in those boxes are words. Just words. But books are so much more than words. They are the city you bought them in, the person who handed them to you and the tree you sat under the first time you read them. They are virgin ideas and century old thoughts. They are maps and distractions. They are inspiration. The books in boxes in the back of that storage container have become friends, traveling companions in this wandering life of mine. I will often go back and re-read them, every time discovering something new: a new turn of phrase, a new scene, a new description that breaks my heart. Or I will meet a person who needs one of them. There is no better gift than a good book, for if it is the right one, it will be with you forever.
