What a weekend!

I’m really excited about having all of my things in one place. But of course that means getting them there, so this weekend was phase 1 of what I think will be a 2-phase move. Most of the furniture has gone, just my poor little office with its huge desk and a work table for sorting paper remain. And do I have paper to sort. I’m a poet, and I probably have at least 6-8 copies of every poem I’ve ever written. While I’m not willing to trust everything to electronics, I also don’t need the extra 1000 pounds of paper. So it’s sort and recycle time.

I’ve got 6 giant file cabinet drawers to go through, and go through them I will. I just moved between 700-800 pounds of books and about 300 pounds of bookcases that hold them. My terrific niece and nephew did a lot of the heavy lifting, but I moved most of the books three times–once to pack them, once to cart them up to my office at the farm, and then again to put them in place on the shelves. And I say in place loosely–just a rough sort. I’ll have all winter to get them in the shape I want them. My objective is to be all packed by Friday so I can go off to LaGrande to the East/West Oregon Poets roundup/conclave for two wonderful days of schmoozing and poetry and be ready to finish my move early next week.

On my trip back from the farm today, I listened to another of the philosophy lectures that have me so captured tight now. The topic was Rousseau, another misunderstood philosopher. Rousseau wasn’t advocating primitivism but rather the sort of philosophy that I’ve sunk into over the last few years: Replace the accumulation of “stuff” with an immersion in the present. If you’re there, be THERE. Listen, look, think, laugh, that sort of thing. Then I caught a wonderful presentation on NPR tonight about Buddhism and the current state of the world. Surprising parallels.

Now I’m starting to ramble, so it must be time to stop. Tomorrow I’ll try to introduce you to one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Marianne

Can you join me for an occasional cup of tea and conversation?

This is a very strange morning. I’m about to take a fork in the road in pursuit of the true Socratic quest: Which course of life is best?

I’ll shortly be leaving the company where I’ve worked for six and a half years with a very interesting group of folks in a fascinating job. But it’s time for me to move on to other things–gardening, cooking, and most of all, writing.

I’ve become addicted to blogging, so of course one of my first steps is to set up this blog. My current blog is behind a private firewall, and I’m ready to go public. I hope you’ll join me for an occasional cuppa something and a discussion that I hope will dive into all sorts of things: philosophy, technology, literature, human culture, the state of the world, and almost anything else that comes to mind.

More soon. I promise.