I’ve picked a hashtag and everything. Which may use a little unpacking. I’ve received good advice to treat my upcoming move to Provincetown as an adventure. And this summer I will be turning 60. So, #adventurous60.
Downsizing from what will probably be rented as a two-bedroom apartment to a small studio (I suspect it’s not more than 350 square feet, if that) is a giant challenge. High on the list of difficult things to let go of are books, in spite of doing almost all of my reading digitally these days. Case in point: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson. Purchased in 1976 in the Netherlands when I was working on a dairy farm for the summer in a Future Farmers of America program. Put in the “keep” pile because, well. Even though I haven’t touched it in years.
But no! Tonight I checked, and Dickinson’s poems are online. And so I will treasure my memories, let go of a book, and step out in adventure.
This Consciousness that is aware
Of Neighbors and the Sun
Will be the one aware of Death
And that itself alone
Is traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment
Appointed unto Men —
How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery —
Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be —
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity.