Clutter

Less than two days left on my visit to southern Florida and I have seen the sun for a total of 25 minutes if you do not count its miraculous appearance everyday at about 4:30 when you are on your way to do something else. It’s been a good trip though, seeing family, friends, taking care of business. I’ve managed to get a hint of color despite the constant cloud cover and even dipped myself into the healing salt water. It has not ben a wasted trip. I am committed to de-cluttering when I get home as time permits. As I sit here now, I am staring at a bookcase full of old books that no one will ever read again. Not classics; just old. I’m certain no one even bought these books but that they just showed up here courtesy of a well-intentioned visitor: titles like Playboys Book of Games, and Trump (he probably wrote it himself). Actually, there are one or two that I’m guessing my father read at some point in the distant past: one by Joseph Heller whose jacket is torn so I can’t see the title, and Russell Baker’s Good Times. I might be tempted to pick these up myself were it to suddenly snow instead of rain and if the mall were to close, the car break down and the electricity fail so that I was forced to close the computer and all electronic devices. I could take them home where such things do happen but then I would have to carry them there and that’s ridiculous! These old hard-copy volumes weigh far too much to put in a carry-on bag. I wonder if they are available on Kobo. Then there are the shelves of videos and tapes: an audio version of Grisham’s The Partner; I think I gave him that, when his eyesight was failing and someone suggested he might enjoy books-on-tape. He didn’t. Neither do I. I much prefer the voices in my own head providing character and nuance. Perhaps he didn’t like it because I chose such an ordinary work of non-art. Perhaps he would have thrilled to the words of actual literature. Where did I buy this, Costco? There’s a video of Victor Borge that I might watch again someday, and one called Let’s Go Mets which I will not but might yield a quarter or so on a tag-sale-table. Most are home videos: copies of TV programs the viewer just had to save, and unedited footage of family visits and events that might get played someday and will provide a few hours of reminiscent entertainment until one gets bored with all the static and lengthy moments of inactivity. Would that they were edited highlight reels but, alas… I have easily three times as many of these already in my home library that my husband assiduously transferred to dvd, again without editing them, and then I believe saved the videotapes anyway so now we don’t always know what was re-recorder and what is a potential gem waiting to be discovered but there is never time to watch them anyway. No, it’s just clutter, unless… I suddenly can see myself as an old lady whose memory has gone, staring at these old images hour after hour, trying to put my finger on this or that face, this or that place, knowing it is familiar but having a connection that is a fleeting and delicate as a wish on the wind. Will there be available anything as antique as a VCR by then? Perhaps I should transfer them to DVD.