On the Shelf ...
It's almost impossible for me to believe it, but I
find that I am now in my tenth year of residence at my current
address here in Hamura, in Tokyo. When we moved into this 'concrete
box' nearly a decade ago, I could not have imagined that I would
still be in these same rooms so many years later. My previous
'record' for length of stay in any particular place had been
something less than five years - and that was quite an exception.
Counting back through the years, I calculate that in the 35 years
before coming to Japan I lived in 18 different homes - an average of
nearly two years in each place. And now to realize that it has been
ten years here ... No wonder it seems unbelievable.
Now whether or not you think that spending only
two years in each home before moving on to a new residence is 'good'
or 'bad' in itself, there is one quite undeniable benefit to such a
practice. Each time the moving truck arrives it becomes an occasion
for a grand clean-up and clear-out. Important possessions go into the
truck - everything else goes out to the garbage, or gets passed on to
somebody else. Two years in a home simply isn't enough time to
accumulate many boxes hidden away at the back of the closets, or
parked up in the attic. The volume of possessions that builds up over
the years is thus kept to a reasonable amount compared to that
gathered by a person who has resided in one home for most of his
life. People who do that can amass quite spectacular 'collections'
over the years.
During our long stay here in this apartment, I
never really gave this much thought. On occasion, such as when
looking through the albums of photos from our early days here, I
realized that the appearance of our place had certainly changed - it
seemed so wide and airy in those old pictures, but as such changes
take place very gradually, one doesn't really notice what is
happening. It is only when some dramatic event like a move, or a huge
'spring-cleaning' disrupts our routines, that we become faced with
the reality of the situation ... where did all this stuff come
from?
And so it was with me this spring. Those of you
reading these scribbles of mine over the past couple of years know
something of the changes that have taken place to my family - the
four of us moving here to Japan; being joined by two grandparents;
grandfather passing away, and his wife leaving to another relative's
home; my children's mother leaving for school in Canada, and then a
couple of years later parting from our family permanently ... But
through all these changes, this place still remained my home, and
there was no major rearrangement of it. Whether there were six people
living here, or four, or then three ... it made no difference. Here I
sat, carving my woodblocks day after day. Unnoticed to me though, we
were all this time building up a vast collection of ... of 'stuff'.
One by one things came in the door, but nothing ever seemed to leave.
A book for me, a toy for the girls, a new umbrella for their mother,
a mattress for grandad, a new cooking pot, a bag of clothes being
'handed down', a few woodblocks ... on and on and on it went, for ten
years. For ten long years ...
But this spring there was finally that major
rearrangement. I don't really want to write much about it just yet,
but as of this April I suddenly find myself living here alone. The
girls have gone to Canada to live with their mother. Ten years ago
four of us, then six of us, then four again, then three, and now ...
and now, for all the foreseeable future, it will be just one. It is
going to require quite some emotional adjustment to get used to this
situation, but just as obviously, it is time for a very large
clean-up. Ten years of accumulated possessions to be sorted
through.
Now if you found yourself in this situation, what
would you tackle first? Would you get into the kitchen and clean out
all those unneeded stacks of plates, pots and pans, trimming it all
down to just those things useful for one person? Or would you perhaps
start with those bags of clothes stashed at the back of the closet,
throwing out the useless stuff, and wrapping up the rest for
'hand-me-down' to friends' children? Or how about that closet full of
baby toys and games ... What about the balcony, with those stacks of
unwanted empty flower pots? The bathroom, with all those mysterious
bottles of lotions and potions waiting for disposal? What would be
your first 'target'?
My answer: none of the above. Once I felt ready to
start work, I began with the most important place - the bookshelves!
Now although we have always had bookshelves dotted here and there in
the apartment, and indeed had built some right back at the beginning
when we first moved in, I have never found most of them comfortable
or useful. The shelves in the kids' room were full of their own
books, magazines and games, while those in the 'dining room' held our
fax and a pile of general junk. The shelves in my workroom held
materials related to my printmaking work, and those in the kitchen of
course were stacked with kitchen supplies and cookbooks. Whatever
books I had managed to accumulate over these ten years were housed in
that little room that served us as a storeroom, and which contained
all the overflow from each of the other rooms - boxes of woodblock
prints from my workshop, bags of clothes from the children's room,
etc. The bookshelf was unreachable, and even if I could have
'browsed' comfortably along it, it would have made no difference, as
the books in it were stacked three deep. It was such a chore to get
in there and try to locate a particular book that I simply never did
it. Out of sight, out of mind.
Restoring order to this chaos became priority
number one. Into boxes for disposal 'later' went all the kids' books
and other clutter from their shelves, and out came my long-hidden,
and now very dusty, books. It took quite a while, setting aside the
printmaking work for a couple of days, first getting out the
woodworking tools to rearrange the shelves as I wanted them, and then
organizing the books satisfactorily. When the job was done and my
'new' library was ready, I felt quite a warm satisfaction at again
having books as part of my daily life. Of course, I don't 'use' those
bookshelves every day, but just being able to see all those books
there is important to me. They are all old friends; these books that
had enough of an impact on me to prompt me to keep them after
reading, instead of turning them in at the second-hand bookshop, as I
have done with so many others. And thus one of those quiet pleasures
of life, one which has been denied me for most of this past decade,
has been restored: the pleasure of browsing along the bookshelves
waiting to see which one will jump out into your hands, saying "Read
me! Choose me! Me next!" Those clothes closets? The kitchen cabinets?
Umm ... I'll get round to those a bit later ... I've got a bit of
reading to catch up on first!
Seeing these books at last out in the open, and
having them as part of my daily life again, is making me feel a bit
restless about all those books I put in storage in Canada ten years
ago when preparing for the move to Japan. There are a few thousand
volumes waiting patiently for me over there, and during these years
of living in this relatively small apartment with an active family it
has been completely impossible to even consider having them brought
over here. Now though ... But I think I'd better hold off before
sending for them. After all, I'm supposed to be in the middle of a
giant clear-out. I shouldn't be thinking of bringing more stuff in
here ...
It's funny, but when I sat down to start this
little piece this evening, it was simply with the intention of
chatting about why I hang on to old books, even ones that I'll
probably never read again. I didn't want to mention my family
situation, I just wanted to talk about books. It's easier just to
talk about a few old books ... a shelf or two of old friends
...