How Do I Love Books? Let me Count the Ways.

The Common Household Husband forced me to look through these six boxes of books that have been sitting in our garage untouched since we moved to this house thirty years ago.  They smelled so musty that I will likely suffer the allergy effects for the next three days.  He thoughtfully put them on a card table in the basement so that I wouldn’t have to bend down while looking through them.

  

The first box had some old work papers I had written in the 1990s.  Look, folks, words and numbers printed on paper is how commodity research used to be disseminated!  How quaint!  These will all be consigned to the recycled paper bin.

The first box also had numerous tomes on the Soviet economy.  Let’s hope that is a topic for the permanent past.  All will be going to the dustbin of history.  

Love and grief came rushing in when I saw these two books that belonged to my mother when she was a girl:  The Bobbsey Twins and The Outdoor Girls.  There used to be a whole set of some of these.  These particular volumes were first published in 1917 and 1921, well before World War II.  What  I cherished about these books is finding the words “7 day” handwritten inside.  As a girl my mother loved to play library, which included forcing her younger sister (my aunt) to borrow the books for 7 days.   The books were in very poor condition, so off to the discard pile they went.

In another box there were more books about Russia.  There will definitely not be a next time I go to Russia - that one was easy to discard. 

One box, labeled “Good Literature” in my husband’s writing, included giant classics of Russian lit (some in English, some in Russian), plus some steamy paperbacks (not pictured).  We each have our idea of what is Good Literature.  The novels in Russian were purchased aspirationally but I never read them.

Another box had some really great children’s books. 

It was agony to get rid of these books.  The decision was made a little easier by the overwhelmingly musty odor.  Nevertheless, I chose to keep six books.  There is probably a one in a thousand chance that I will actually read these.

This blog post serves as proof to my adult children that I saved them from having to go through six boxes of dusty books.  I told the Common Household Husband to cart the six boxes away, and not to tell me what he did with them.  Any sane person would have snuck them into a dumpster somewhere,  but he took them to Goodwill.

I felt a sense of relief seeing the empty spot where the boxes had been.  When I went down to the basement the next day, the card table was refilled, with 8 more boxes of musty books to go through.  Sigh. 

Sonnet 43: How do I love thee?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of being and ideal grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day’s 

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for right. 

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.