I have always (at least since I was very young, and sharing a room with my rather controlling, sometimes combative older brother) been meticulous about my home. Given the vast number of books this involves, and the huge number of moves between 1992 and 2002 (about fourteen, if I have counted right – some of them exceptionally involuntary), this effort to keep things neat and orderly has often had its difficult side; it has certainly had a desperate quality to it at times (for instance, that point in Book of the Sun where I panic).
About a year or so after moving here – this must be a couple of years ago, now – I had a period where I realized, through a number of increasingly enclosed dreams, that this orderliness had devolved into a desperate attempt to control things, in a context where it felt as though I had no control (international chaos, loss of money, deportation, etc.). I remember realizing that it had devolved into an obsessive symptom – a rather pathetic defense against the chaos I was experiencing. Certainly, I was a particularly bad host at several points over that time – snapping at people who moved books on my shelves, looking unavoidably stricken when a postgraduate dropped chocolate-raspberry cake on the carpet. All a bit ridiculous, or evidently ungenerous, to those who don't have the same needs for a structured world, of course.
Things are calmer now. I still have many of the same problems – depression, procrastination, slothful avoidance of activity, either physical or mental – but am dealing with them somewhat more directly, and with slightly less helplessness. Here, the onset of summer – dazzlingly long days, amazingly bright light coming into the room, and the fading of teaching duties into the background: a space gratifyingly free of the (frequently) irresponsible demands of students – makes me measure each part of the apartment in a slightly different way: if I put plants there, will I take care of them? Do I need to organize this area, or would I be better off doing something productive? Given that there is a clear pile of Papers To Handle, how about if I actually handle them?
There is a sunny, unthreatening quality to all of this – unusual given my former take on it....
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