Like a waterfall, all the books
on the shelf in the closet came running down towards. One of them hit me on the
foot, but it was a small one, so the pain was not that bad. However, the
incident reminded that stuff had been stored around the house for years and
years. There were so many shelves and drawers and hidden little closets and
tiny spaces to keep things, and we had all used them ever since I had lived
there as a young boy. I even remember my mother telling me where and how to
store everything.
The book that had hit my foot was one that I had read a lot when I was
young: 1984 by George Orwell. I
remember being fascinated by the world building this master of writing had
achieved. I really felt there, with all the characters, enduring their hardships
and helping them survive somehow. Of course, the book was maybe too dark for me
as a young man, but it was one of those building blocks of my personality. I
think everyone should be obliged to read such a masterpiece.
I decided to grab all the books
and put those I wanted to keep in a box. Of course, 1984 would go there but there were many others that I hadn’t seen
for decades and now I had to decide whether to throw them away or not. The
first thing I decided on was to put all my former schoolbooks and notebooks on
trash bags. I had no use for that. School had been kind of a nightmare at the
end, so it made no sense keeping something that reminded me of any bad moments
in my life.
Some people keep those kinds of
books as souvenirs, even to help their children in the future with their
homework, but I’m more of a realist. I will never have any children and even if
I did, I wouldn’t put them through the trauma and boredom of watching how lousy
I was at school when I was young. I’d rather help them with current knowledge
and not by reminiscing about things that no one longer cares about. So I put
the about ten books and seven notebooks in trash bags.
I did the same thing with
notebooks from college. I had already studied enough and keeping them would
only occupy space for other books that I would like to keep. For example, I had
a small but very well preserved collection of graphic novels that I had binged
through during my college years. They had been great entertainment when I
wanted to relax for a while and not be so dependent on internet or anything
associated with it. They were a great source of a imagination and certainly
helped me build my own creativity during those years. I loved them too much to
part with them.
The remaining books where old and
had belonged to my parents. So it wasn’t my choice to put them away or throw
them away. I had to ask before doing anything. So I put all of those in a
different box and clean the whole space with care. I put on a mask on my mouth,
as the amount of dust was just incredible. It took me a long while to properly
clean the closet, every single corner and space, before leaving for my former
bedroom and start doing the same thing there. It seemed like a job that
wouldn’t end.
But, in time, it did. Every
single thing that I wanted to keep was in boxes that would be sent to my place.
Some other things would be sent to mu parents home, where they could decided if
they wanted to keep all that or if they want to throw something. Knowing them,
a visit to their place would be necessary because parents are all the same,
they have difficulty trying to part with anything that reminds them of
something you did when you were young or that reminds them of a tiny thing they
did year ago.
It’s their choice anyway. I
carried all the trash bags to the containers and said my final goodbyes. After
all, many of those books and toys and so many other things had been there
through my younger years. Years that had been difficult at some points and
joyful at others. It is weird, but as humans we do tend to give this human
quality to everything that is not alive. We care for our things as if they knew
we cared for them and it goes beyond of trying to preserve them as long as
possible. It’s a weird kind of love.
Driving back home, with two boxes
filled with my past, my eyes started to fill up and I had to take advantage of
a red light in order to clean my eyes with a tissue and just try to compose
myself. Cleaning the house in which I had lived for so long had been a very
unexpected experience. It’s one of those things you don’t really think much
about but, once you’re there doing the job, you realized that it’s not as
simple as it looks. It’s difficult to stare at your past and just see it all in
front of you, kind of like a movie.
I was grateful to get home and
put the boxes on the elevator. A young woman I had never seen on the building
helped me hold the button for me, as I pushed the boxes into the steel
container. She got down first. She seemed very nice and that made me realize I
really had no idea who my neighbors were, except for the lady that lived next
door who loved to sing opera at the top of her lungs every single afternoon. I
guess she thought it would be less annoying at that time of day. Maybe she had
been a famous opera singer or had failed to reach her life dream. Who knows?
I pushed the boxes all the way
from the elevator to my doorstep. I was about to pull the keys out of my coat,
when the door flung open and he stood there, smiling. Apparently, he had heard
me coming from the elevator and had waited patiently to open the door. He
grabbed one box and I took the other. We put them by the sofa and hen just fell
on the furniture. I was exhausted and he seemed to be tired too. He had gone
out with friends to hike some mountain or something like that. A sportsman, he
was.
We lay there for a while, slowly
embracing each other, in silence. Then, the afternoon came and we realized we
had fallen asleep for a short while. I woke up because my stomach was hurting.
I had been working on the house all day and had not eaten a single thing. He
proposed we should order takeout but I reminded him we had no money to spare
for that. So I decided to stand up and cook something fast. Pasta came to mind,
so I just started cooking right away, not even listening to what he was saying.
He apparently grew tired of not
getting real answers, because he then turned to the boxes and opened them. He
grabbed some things, looked at my toys and browsed some of the old magazines I
had wanted to save from the dumpster. He laughed when he saw my old video
games, as he had never known I had played videogames when younger. It’s weird
but we had never really talked about our childhood personas. Our younger self
sometimes feels like a whole different person, away from us.
I saw 1984 in his hands, just as I chopped some tomatoes for the sauce. I
waited to hear if he had something to say about it, if he had any input about
me owning such a book. He didn’t say a word for a while. He appeared to be
checking the state of the book and some of the pages. But he wasn’t saying
anything. For a moment, I asked myself what kind of couple lives together for
almost a year and they don’t even share their tastes to one another. It made me
feel like a failure, so much so that I almost cut off a finger.
Then, he started reciting. He
just opened the book on a random page, the one where Winston talks about Julia,
and how he sees her and how he feels. The way he read it was just delightful
and, as the water boiled and I put the pasta in, I smiled hearing his voice
reading my favorite book ever.
He only stopped when started
serving. The food looked amazing and I think his reading inspired me. He left
the book on the coffee table and, before sitting down to eat, he kissed me
softly and I gently grabbed him by the waist. It felt different somehow. But
different good. We smiled and ate, while talking.
