Sifting through the heft

Only three weeks (or so) left before our big move, so we’re going through our books and clothes and trying to get rid of/donate whatever we can.

Randolph’s currently trying on his older pairs of glasses–looking at the future through the past. Or maybe seeing what the future looked like then: blurry.

We’re getting rid of 250+ books. I’ve filled three bags with clothes. We’re getting rid of the TV/VCR combo that one of my oldest friends–I miss you, Neil–gave me when I moved into my first apartment at eighteen. That means getting rid of the two dozen VHS tapes I’ve hung onto for the past thirteen years, mainly from the cartoons that ran as part of MTV’s Oddities: The Maxx, Aeon Flux, The Head. But also some late 90s romantic comedies: The Truth about Cats and Dogs, Kissing a Fool, among others. I’m doing this from memory. I haven’t watched any of the tapes or even looked at them since we moved back to Boston four years ago.

These are easy decisions to make. It’s easier to leave things behind than it is to leave the place itself.

Last night, I hosted Literary Firsts–the series I started after spending two years away from Boston (in New York) and returning, wanting to do more with/for the Boston literary community. The air conditioner at the Middlesex is broken, and though they had portable units and fans, we all remarked on the temperature. But everyone stayed because the readers transcended the heat. They made it a joy to be in that room. They reinforced my decision to keep Literary Firsts where it is. I think of it as part of Boston and Cambridge and the work I’ve done here, but more so the work that all the writers who I’ve had the great opportunity to work with have done in its name.

I’m trying not to think of this as goodbye. I keep emphatically telling everyone that it really isn’t goodbye. We’ll be back in October, then January, then April, then July. Then we’ll play that same tune on repeat for as long as it takes for us to come back.