Now that my books are unboxed and shelved, the house feels more like home. I am a (slowly) recovering packrat in general, and particularly with respect to books. I knew I had a lot of books, but until now, I don’t think I’d quite acknowledged the extent of my hoarding habit. I had a few things dating back to high school, and virtually my entire college and law-school courseloads, all packed into boxes that have traveled with me cross-country and even over the Atlantic, lo these many years.
Taking them out, dusting them off, trying to decide whether to keep or eliminate them, I was flooded with memories. I filled almost a full shelf with French plays, representing a year-long course in which I found a life-long friend and cultivated a great love for Molière. I’d like to read these again, because they’re wonderful reads and because my French could use a brush-up. I'm also keeping all the human rights and geography books, because they and the classes for which I bought them played a significant role in my decision to go to law school (at the time, I intended to become an international environmental and/or human rights lawyer). Many of my beloved anthropology books are staying, too. They played a huge part in my then-budding travel obsession and helped me go out into the world with an open-minded and culturally sensitive approach.
On the other hand, I'm getting rid of more than half of my international economics and politics books, mostly because the international order has moved so far away from what it was in the early 1990s. I've shelved, and hope to reread, some of those, however. Like Looking Backward, and The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
I found (and am not keeping) a grammar book from the Russian class I took from a German professor in France. I didn’t learn a shred of Russian in that class - and forgot most of the two-years' worth I'd already learned - because the professor always spoke French with a German accent. Still, I met some of my closest French friends in that ridiculous class.
My law books still had the silly tape-flag tabs I plastered them with before exams, a system that was useful only for forcing me to work my way back through the casebooks and to triple-check my outlines. I'll keep them, for now. A lighter memento of my law school years was the complete Tales of the City series, by Armistead Maupin, and a big book of P.D. Wodehouse stories. Early in my first year, I mentioned to the professor who would become my mentor and research supervisor that I sorely missed having time for non-law reading. He suggested short stories, which turned out to be the perfect solution.
My favorite box was the one crammed full of stuff from my childhood bedroom, which I must have packed up in the mid-90s when my father took over my room as his home office (he left the James Dean poster on the ceiling and still has my blue-flowered wallpaper). In addition to my degree from the University of Strasbourg and my National Merit Scholar certificate, I found a Certificate of Award from Foothill Elementary School, honoring me as the Best Creative Writer in 1980. If I recall correctly, this award was based on a poem for which I also won a citywide writing award, and which my mother probably has tucked away in my baby book!
In the same box were several mounted photographs I’d taken as a high school sophomore. I loved my photography class and was convinced that I had Vision. Alas, I was a bit daunted by the workings of my father’s manual SLR camera and never quite launched my brilliant career as a photojournalist. I like these photos, though. They are black-and-white and a little bit artsy, and I think I’ll frame them and hang them in my office at home.
In addition to my own photos, there’s one my friend Lys (from whom I drifted away when she turned into a Marley-obsessed pothead) took of me. I don’t remember whether this was pre-mohawk or just after I’d regrown my hair, but it definitely reflects my early punker days. I believe the focus of the photo was my hearing aid, because that fit into whatever assignment Lys was completing. Somewhere in my parents’ house, I think I have another version that my friend used for her pastel-on-photo assignment. The colors she added were pretty consistent with what was actually in my hair at the time!
Last but not least were my high school yearbooks. My senior picture shows me in a modest blue button-down shirt, with neat chin-length hair and a nice big smile. Junior year is forgettable. But in the 1986 Odaroloc, there I am in all my mohawked glory. My class picture was pre-mohawk, but my outfit of paisley blouse under a peach Forenza v-neck sweater, enormous earrings, rhinestone neck brooch, and an armful of black rubber O-ring bracelets looks like something Mollie Ringwald might have worn in Pretty in Pink. In the front section of the book, though, is the million-dollar photo. Me, on Halloween, dressed in black, and having a lovely spider web painted on the shaved side of my head by an Art Club student. That night I was a vampire, wearing this fantastic long black cape that my (extremely cool) mommy made me for the occasion.
I fully intended to share these photos with you, but I can’t seem to make the scanner work right now. If Steve can get it all hooked up, I’ll update with pictures, promise.
