Dearest Galosh, all those places I once called home

This is the third letter to my dearest Galosh. The previous letter is here.

You’re packing up your late mother-in-law’s house. Years and years of life, one piece of evidence collected at a time, everything goes in boxes. You go through old letters and newspapers, kitchen utensils from the 50’s, a stamp collection. For some reason, drawers full of stockings. A suitcase in which lies a collection of poetry books. Her husband’s old carpentry tools, kept with evident love.

You wander through this life that passed. Your fingers rub onto the scratches on the cherry wood desk. A flower vase sits on the table with the roses dried up. That vague dusty smell. She had spent her last couple of weeks in hospital after the fall. Half-chewed mint bonbons lay on the night table and yet another pair of stockings on the chair.

As you open the wardrobe, the smell of naphthalene and those lavender pillows washes over you. You find a series of fur hats that nobody could possibly wear today. At the back of the drawer lay hidden a couple of paintings she painted herself back when her hand was steady. She was a painter of landscapes who enjoyed herself and it showed in her work.

You choose a couple of them and look around for more on the walls. You then head to the reading room. Your mother-in-law had been an academic, and so had her husband, who died a long time ago. Mountains of books lay neatly stacked in double rows on shelves bending with the weight, waiting to be read again, at least once, for old time’s sake.

My parents had a reading room just like that. When we moved from one apartment to another, I would organize and pack the shelves and then re-order the books in neat double rows. We moved around quite often during my childhood and by the end I had gotten quite good at it. The smell of books and the line of dust they leave as you empty a shelf take me back to all those places I called home.

The time came when we had to part with some of the books to save on space. I sat there tearing each one as if from my very heart. Ok, not all of them. We gave away most of the rubbish books you get handed down from friends or bought on a whim in a flea market and that end up disappointing. My father went through the chosen sacrifices as well, and put a few back on the shelf. We where still left with a sizeable amount.

We called a guy who made us a bulk offer. And off they went. Most probably to the shredder.

When my father died, my mother wanted to give away his theology books. The big kind of books with golden leather cover and very thin pages. I used to marvel at the weird look of those books as a child, though the truth of it is, no one really ever opened them. Mom looked for someone who would appreciate something like that. The books are still in the old apartment now.

My books, I now carry them digitally but the hard-covers of my favorite ones remain in storage for two reasons. First, because I still don’t know how to give up books (I know I’m not the only one here..) And second, because I have this idea of a far away future home of ours, with walls full of my favorite reads, like a collection of my favorite universes, a witness of my multiple selves, a remnant of my not-so-minimalist former life… you get the point.

The world of tangible reads in kept alive today mostly by nostalgia. There is nonetheless something I am grateful for in this digitization process: those annoying notes and underlines you find sometimes on text that has been read before. (Don’t hesitate to comment to share the pain or explain yourself if you’re one of those monsters)

Today, in the home projects I work on, I am always tempted to add this… anachronistic feature. Most people don’t need a reading room though.

Even I, in the house I live in now, haven’t got an actual place for the few books I still have with me. They’re just lying around, tossed from coffee table to kitchen shelf to the top of the cupboard. It’s mostly hand-me-down night-table stuff and architecture magazines so I don’t feel too guilty.

But imagine, in between the windows on a South wall, ceiling-high bookshelves to add all your gems, a big comfy armchair standing by. (The south wall works best for me because it’s where they would get the least amount of damaging sunlight).

I could go get my old books from home and stash them here. Hell, I could even bring my dads’ theology stuff that no one reads!

You could add your old favorites from high school and we could buy the Chekhov short stories collection that you love so.

How about that? Would you add a reading room?

For me?

Yours,

Jo

Originally published at https://jopetroni.substack.com on January 18, 2022.