cleaned up a bit. That is my goal, to get rid of the piles of books and papers, magazines, general reading materials that seem to collect over the year all over the house (before the Christmas stuff is unleashed, flying down the stairs to cover every surface . . .).
I never understood my mother's drive to give things away—until now. I look around, and can't imagine why I've accumulated all this stuff.
I want to strip everything away, and live nunlike in a white-washed cell, with a slim volume of prayers by my bed; a candle. A voluminous white nightgown and a shorn head, the breeze through a tall window, high up in the wall. The toll of a bell my only timekeeper.
23 comments:
That's a very vivid image!
This gives me an idea.
Hey, that's a great story-starter there!!
That simplified life you've described in your last paragraph sounds so nice - for a week or two. I wonder how long it would be before we'd want our cluttered stacks of books back.
It'd be great for five minutes...and then, I guarantee, you'd be crawling the walls with boredom and longing for your books! But it is a lovely image - a good one to meditate with.
But there is a coziness to that photo you posted.
well i'm not sure i'd go so far as the almost-empty white-washed cell.... though just sometimes .... but i'd get rid of at least 50% of the stuff in our house if i could
well done on the desk, looks quite nicely clear
I like your desk. Do you have pens I can play with?
The lamont book...bird by bird... (scampering off to look at Amazon dot com 's pages)
oh! word verif. readi
moments later and I have Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird in hand--on my kindle. 7 bucks.
hey, have you read Stephen King's book on writing? I had at one time the book on tape (or cd?) anyway, i drove around Ireland for 3 wks listening to stephen king talk and he was fascinating--I think I listened 3 times. But then the actual book was just a fraction of what he talked about--seems once he started recording he got gabby and that was great. He's a funny guy.
S: How do you like reading on kindle? No, I didn't realize that Stephen king had written a book about writing. I'll search it out.
the concept of living in a cell doesn't sounds appealing nor having my head shorn. less stuff definitely and I'll take the voluminous white nightgown especially if it's made of soft flannel!
I've been having this urge to purge lately too. We have so much stuff! When I think that I came to France with just a suitcase and two trunks, and that at the time my husband-to-be was living in a furnished gîte with only his personal effects and some books to his name...what happened?
I would like my head shorn too..but my head is just too big...it really does resemble a melon when my hair is cut short. Although, if I was living as a nun, I guess it wouldn't really matter....nice image though. Does 2 suitcases count? I can't believe we are only 12 weeks away from packing it all up and living on the road for a year....gads!
It seems that we spend the first 2/3 of our life accumulating stuff and the last 1/3 getting rid of it.
I love the kindle --I still read actual books and go to the library and stuff... I sample a lot of stuff for free on the kindle then put what I like on my library list.
If you're into old classics you can carry around 1,000 books (All of Hardy and Shakespeare, Lots of Zola and odd collections of short stories... like benchley & hecht and so forth ) When i was sick and felt like reading junk, I read freebie chapters of memoirs and humor books. I only buy something once a week or so. It is so worth it if you enjoy classics. They are dirt cheap and it's great to read stuff by Zola I never could find at the library or bookshop. (I love him!)
If you delete something by accident, or lose your kindle or break it, Amazon has all the info backed up for you so you never lose it.
There are many other things you can do with it, but I haven't used it to listen to music or audio books yet.
you can get newspapers and magazines too. and read blogs. but I've been immersed in classics lately. It's nice to read, the "pages" are like book pages looks wise. easy on the eyes, and you can enlarge the typeface.
Rita Mae Brown wrote a book on writing. I have a copy somewhere...
I so TOTALLY agree with you on the clutter issue. I am planning a massive trip to Goodwill. I used to have that Steven King book on writing but gave it away in one of my previous massive unclutterings.
Clean House on Style network I find to be inspirational in encouraging me to clear clutter.
Not so different from mine. Except mine are on a shelf on the other side of the room (exercise . . . exercise . . .).
I like that guide to London sitting there on the desktop.
I have decided that desks are in and of themselves completely unfunctional.
Their surfaces are ALWAYS covered with stuff.
Dr Johnson reputedly had 26 - and they were always covered with stuff.
This is a quiz: why did SJ have 26 of them?
The only nice desk is the one in a hotel room or similar - where someone has cleared it and left it EMPTY.
Anyway, my aim in 2009 is to work, thanks to an exceedingly small computer, from a warm bed.
I'm with you on the clutter issue but somehow can't think of books in that category.
There was an interesting article on the BBC you may have enjoyed about how on a first date men lie about the books they read, professing to liking more "highbrow" literature...
(my bureau is still clear)
Oh, good, can you come and clear mine?
Perhaps we should do a desk swop.
All of mine are cluttered up with the filing I plan to do over part of the holidays.
PS to everyone who mentioned the Stephen King book: I'm reading it for the first time and am finding it more impressive than any other writers' guide I have read.
I'm getting the King book, then!
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