I have a book somewhere around here someplace that I am keeping for no reason. I keep a lot of books around for no reason, if I think about it even a little bit. But this particular book is a copy of Pride and Prejudice. It’s a paperback copy of the book that I bought in England in 1996 as part of a class I was taking on Austen’s P&P and Mansfield Park. It has a price tag sticker on the cover for 5 British pounds. I studied both books for basically a whole school year, so the book is well finger-trod – the pages are pretty soft, and it wasn’t the world’s best paperback copy to begin with, so it might even be shedding pages away from the binding by now. It has oodles of pseudo-intellectual markings in it from a whole year of churning over it page by page as a teenager. It’s safe to say I will not read this particular copy of P&P again, since the loosening of the binding would make the book sort of inconvenient to enjoy, and the note-taking of that teenager would distract me and probably embarrass me in front of myself a little.
Why do I have this book? Am I acting in some kind of self-archivist role here by holding on to this thing, as though future generations of Martha studiers will draw conclusions from the book about the pivotal, most substantive moments of my life in an attempt to recreate my life path? What I mean to say is that nothing like this will ever happen, ever. If that book makes it with me to my death, it will be put in a box and sent to the Salvation Army, or probably thrown away, since it’s not really useful for anyone anymore. Or at most, some guilty next-generation relative will take it home and keep it in a box or on a shelf where it will continue to inform and delight no one.
Why oh why do I have this book? And I’m definitely not going to throw it away, let me be clear about that. I suppose it is a remembrance? Is it then just like a snap shot of something that I use to remember that certain events in my life actually happened? Is it a little memory jogger that helps to place me in space-time within the linear narrative of my life story? I suppose I am an archivist of myself, aren’t I? But to what end? Something about that book makes me feel interesting to myself. I did something a long time ago and it’s fun to remember it sometimes. This seems like kind of a lame, self-indulgent reason to keep crap around (vanity!). I mean, I’m not going to forget that once upon a time I went to England and read a book. And if I do forget, what of it? So do I keep is as proof? As evidence of my own interesting-ness to myself? To others?
I have sooooo many books hanging around in various parents’ garages and spare rooms. Tons and tons of comic books, too. The comics books are a special case, though. These are not library-card items. The fantasy attached to the comic books is that since they are clearly awesome, someday my offspring will be old enough to read them and they will have the same happy experience of the comics’ awesomeness, and I will be really happy that we both will have enjoyed them, and won’t that be awesome. This is my literal hope for those comic books. Also that I like to read and re-read them. I’ve probably read most of them at least 4 times each, and there is really a huge number of them. Yep, I keep them so that 15 to 20 years from now I might get someone who doesn’t, and may never exist, to read them too.
In my future there is a big accumulation of crap belonging to previous generations. None of it is organized. None of it does anything for me except in a strange, far-off, anecdotal sense that requires an older person from my life to contextualize. I would like to lengthen my memory of my own family, I think that’s important. I asked various branches of the family for family trees a long time ago but they have not been forthcoming. I’m sort of annoyed about that, actually. Where’s my freakin’ family tree? You people have all this crap and numerous stemware and china sets (complete service for 24, sweetheart! Oh but don’t use it it’s too valuable, fragile, and sentimental) and rusty 1800’s ice skates that I’m supposed to treasure and I have no context for them. Get it together, people. I’m planning the yard sale right now.
Seriously what am I going to do with all the faux-historical stuff that I’m going to end up with someday? I ‘m just going to throw it away, donate it, or give it to the local historical society and then replace it with my own bizarre stuff. That’s what’s going to happen. Man, I’m not even interested in the effort required to evaluate and sell potentially valuable items. I can even get myself pre-worried about the future about this issue. What do you think, Buddha, is this worrying a waste of time? Yes. Yes it is.
But back to the important question: what is this compulsion to self-archive? Some stuff I love. I love photos of my parents when they were young. I love photos of them with us as babies and toddlers. I can’t think of anything else that I’m pumped about ephemera-wise. Old clothes? Nah. Nobody in my life has vintage Valentino my size and there will never be anywhere to wear something like that, Lord knows. I’d probably just rather sell it, anyway. Thoreau calls stuff an animal trap – we drag it around, clamped down on our tails – animals will chew off their own legs to be free . . . . well anyway stuff suxx and it’s awesome, I’m highly conflicted about it.
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