Digital Lighter Fluid

The pleasure of collecting books, which are so much more sacred than mere objects, eventually suffocates —swelling throat and dripping excess down my chin.

I loved books so much — the matte of their pages sipping the oil from my skin, their scent musking into my lungs the closer my nose hovered to the binding, the beauty of their haphazard tapestry as they filled wall after wall. I thought no library could be too grand or ever complete but the years have grown this tomb’s walls into little more than just simply being more, threatening to swell their boundaries and vomit unnoticed into garage nooks, or worse, into another rent payment on a tin coffin somewhere to which I’ll probably misplace the keys.

The old pleasures that once expanded my palette became a subtle commitment, then a compulsion—giving me an affirmation of intelligence or emotional connection from their silent perches on the shelves. “Dear visitor to my home, bask in the magnificence of this collection of important thought…” which, if I’m truthful, has become mostly a decorative pattern.
With digital media as my lighter fluid I shut one eye to nostalgia and drop the match to incinerate the fringes of this collection… sparing only the fraction that I’m still to weak to let go — whittling and slicing regularly. I’ve replaced the love of collecting with the power to categorize and curate with ease, to reference and augment at will… to deploy my library anywhere it suits me.

I’ve satiated my need to collect with gathering experiences—winding my way to the grand public libraries at various spots on a map, venerating those truly great collections but feeling free of their burdens. Sketches and notes in ever smaller or more digital notebooks, the occasional postcard or pilfered coffee cup or gently torn-off street poster bringing back that original joy… reframed with the perspective that no object should be heavier than its ability to make me feel light.