Books and Boxes (#AtoZChallenge)

I don't know where I'd be without books in my life.   On the other hand, I don't know where my books would be if I didn't have a house big enough to store them all...

Books and Boxes

       Books and boxes and boxes of books.  That's what you see in the above photo.   My parents bought the china cabinet in 1958 after we moved to Pittsburgh.  We had moved into a duplex that was unfurnished unlike previous places we had lived.  My mom and dad bought brand new furniture for every room in the house.

         The china cabinet--Danish Modern is what I think you call the style--only held glassware and china for the duration of our one year stay in Pittsburgh.  After we moved to San Diego in 1959 the cabinet stood in our living room and held books.  For the next 30 years, with a brief stay in Crown Point Indiana and then to Maryville Tennessee, the cabinet turned bookshelf served as a library in my parents' home.  Eventually it wound up in my California garage--filled with boxes of books.

         This all needs to go.  However there is something unseen in the above photo.  There are two six foot bookcases filled with books, half in Spanish and half in English, that create another layer of "clutter."   Some of the books I'd like to keep.  All of the Spanish books can go because my wife says she doesn't want them and I'm not planning to read them.  I suppose we'll end up giving them away somewhere, but it would be nice if I could sell them.  Craigslist didn't draw any response when I tried there so I'll need to find places that buy Spanish language books.  If there still is such a place.

         Looking at these layers of clutter in wait for a destiny, my mind slips into years of memories, memories that are my own and others that don't belong to me.  The memories go back to the earliest parts of my life and even beyond.  Some of those books are quite old.  One of the Spanish books was published in 1898.  It's not in too bad of shape considering its age and the fact that it's been sitting in a bookshelf in our garage for the past twenty years.

         My life is layer upon layer upon layer.  Parts of my past are so unseen as to be forgotten unless I start thinking deeply.  And even then there are some parts that would take more time to dig out and other parts that might need translating.   Most of my memories are now cobweb covered things tucked in the darker recesses of the layers of the past.

         Books and memories are both important to me.  Still, time is counting down.  I kind of wish that I had a bigger house--the kind like you see in the movies about the very wealthy where they have libraries with high ceilings and shelves that are so tall that you need a ladder to get to the highest books.  Then I could keep all of the books.  I could even have a Spanish section.  And I could keep on buying more books.

         Not going to happen.  Anything's possible, but probably not going to happen.

         Would you want a room that was specifically a library in your house?   How do you get rid of books you no longer want?   What book have you owned longest?