No more books

The reference is to Phil Ochs's song "No More Songs," which is not the most inspiring song in the world. Indeed, anyone doubting whether Phil was suffering from depression need only listen to the lyrics. I don't mean to draw a parallel, but today I just removed all the books from my office and donated them to the library. Actually, before I left for China in the spring I had boxed everyhing away, which made the situation much more quick than I thought it would be. I had to stop myself from lifting the cover off the boxes and looking at books. When I did this once I saw a book I immediately wanted to keep, JUng's "Two Essays on Analytic Psychology." But if I started down that road, I knew there was no guarantee that it woout stop. So I refused to life any of the lids for the rest of the process. There was some problem with the elevator at first; it didn't seem to be working, which I was going to take as a sign. Fortunately, they kicked in rather quickly. THere were about thirteen boxes in all, and they fit into my little Cavalier, which I drove to the loading dock of the library. I had arranged to deliver the books today, but no one was around to help out. So the woman at the desk gave me her key and told me to unload them myself, which I did rather quickly. There was a lttle blue form to fill ou for the donation, asking if you wanted a nameplate with your name pasted on the inside. It didn't mater to me, I said. I just wanted to be rid of the books. And so I am. So one more of the preconditions of my leaving is in place: my office is cleaned out. I think I was a lot less traumatizd by this then I thought I would be because in part everything is going digital anyway and if I decided to take up the burden again I could get a lot of what I need on line. I also thought of the line in one of the Seinfeld shows, where he said he did not understand why people kept books once they read them. What are they, like trophies?