When do you know that it's the last time that you'll do something? I think that it was after the death of my father that I first thought of this question. Being somewhat outrageous, but I don't think perverted, I had a rather undaughterly thought: My mother, most probably, would not have realized that the last time they'd made love would be the final time. One doesn't usually know this I suppose.
This is not a post about sexuality however. In fact, I'm not sure if this will turn out to be about habitual behavior or about books. This brings me to the stacks of books that have been growing on my desk top over the past 4 years and almost 3 months.
On December 10, 2001, I began a habit, a discipline of sorts, that I continued with until July 31, 2003. (Hmmm this seems to parallel the time when I was disciplined in my eating as well).Sometimes I fell behind in this habitual behavior, but until August of 2003, I alway caught up.
The habit was to write a brief summary of the books that I had read. I began doing this as a way to remember what I all too easily forgot, not just what the books were about, but also titles and authors. My July 31st entry was about two books by Richard Russo, The Risk Pool and Mohawk, and Before Women Had Wings by Connie May Fowler.
After this last entry, I made no decision to stop writing my little summaries. I faithfully put each book as I completed it on my desk with the purpose of doing a writing up on it.
As the number of books accumulated, I thought it no different than any of the previous times
when I'd gotten behind in my write ups. I don't even remember when (or if) I realized that I'd stopped doing the write ups entirely. Certainly one would think that by the time that I had to begin my second stack I'd have gotten an inkling that I was no longer writing these summaries. Yet I faithfully continued to add to the stacks. When I began stack number three, I was still blind to my own behavior (or lack there of).
How could this be? How could I not know? Certainly I no longer remember what some (many?) of these books are about. Ah yes, now a memory fragment makes itself known. At some point I decided I'd just make a list of the books and their authors. And still I haven't gotten around to even this simple task. It's rather astounding when I think about it. And also not so surprising when I remember that I had on my to do list for many years the reading of my 1984 Camry book. (I finally crossed that off my list after I'd given the car to my daughter.)
The theme that's emerged has been procrastination - surprisingly.
As to the stack of books, I may emulate Cory who write reviews on her blog. I've been meaning to write about Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land since finishing it about a week ago.
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On another subject, yesterday I took down the last of our two hammocks. There may be a relationship here to the discussion above. My favorite place in the entire world is the string hammock that has hung since Spring in my back yard. I am basically a lazy creature.
Laying on it with book in hand is one of my favorite activities. And even though my time on the hammock has been limited by the press of other activities, one can easily understand how the stacks of books can accumulate when the choice is between reading them or spending some quality hammock time.
