The Unbuilding of My Fortress

I wrote this a couple weeks ago but was too embarrassed by my dweebishness to post it. Which is stupid, really, because if you've ever so much as looked at me you know I'm the nerdiest, bookwormiest person who has ever lived. I am dork, hear me roar. Let the judgment commence.


I leave for Orcas Island in just over two weeks. For the past few days I've been making my packing lists (because, of course, I'm never quite so happy as when I'm making lists). This evening I began amassing belongings on my floor--piles of toiletries, photographs, kitchen supplies--and I was having a grand ol' time...until I reached for my blue plastic milk crate and started filling it with my books.

I don't need to explain (though it appears that's exactly what I'm going to do) what a profound role books play in the small, contained universe that is my life. Each book is its own galaxy, each with its own planetary system and gravitational pull. Each one hollows out a place for itself in my life and settles there so naturally that I become the words I've read. Every page is an intergalactic compass and, at the same time, a tether that keeps me firmly rooted to myself.

You could say I like to read.

I have to be away from this face for five months.

When I began pulling books off my shelves (mind you, many of these are books I haven't even read yet), I became acutely aware that something just wasn't right. The feeling of weightless anticipation I'd been experiencing moments before was gone, and now each time I took I breath I felt like I was inhaling concrete. Unable to pinpoint what had caused the shift, I kept going. I reached for book after book and in a matter of minutes the crate was full and I was piling books on the carpet. When I finished, I leaned back against my dresser and stared at the battleground of belongings that was my floor. My cat wandered into the room and made herself comfortable on a pile of unfolded clean clothes. I called out to her and she lifted her head, yapping like the good little dog she thinks she is. I mention my cat here because one of the only occasions on which she offers forth a sustained period of affection is when any sort of packing is taking place. Having things in disarray unsettles her (at least, it unsettles me and thus I have decided that this is how she feels, too) and she needs to be right in the middle of it so she can monitor the situation. She thinks being sweet to me will make me stay. She doesn't want to be left behind, which is, invariably, the intended consequence of packing.

It was while I was watching my cat trying to plant herself amid the chaos that I realized I was doing the exact same thing. My books have always home to me, and I maintain that I can make myself comfortable anywhere in the world as long as I have them near me. But as I stacked them inside my crate I felt like I myself was being displaced and tucked away, and I was instantly and deeply lonely.

There are three books I take with me whenever I move anywhere: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and a book of poems by Ted Kooser called Delights & Shadows. These were lying at the top of the crate and my gaze shifted from their bent and faded covers to my cat, then back to the bent and faded covers. I took another breath of concrete. Deciding I couldn't live for two more weeks in a state of emotional limbo, I began unpacking the books, one by one, until each one was back in its rightful place on my shelves. When I finished, the room felt bigger. The air felt like air again. Taffy nodded her consent and curled her head under her paw before going back to sleep. "Yes, baby," I said, sliding the crate out the door so I wouldn't have to see it. "All's right in the universe now."