My father said that the reason for living is getting ready to stay dead. I knew at last what he meant and that he could not have known what he meant himself, because a man cannot know anything about cleaning up the house afterward. And so I have cleaned my house.
— Addie Bundren from “As I Lay Dying”
Moving back into the Milwaukie house and cleaning up my room has left me pretty tired, but now that it’s done I’m relieved and looking forward to the rest of the week. I’m going to try to read a book every day, from Monday to Sunday. Even if I don’t succeed it doesn’t matter, because it should be a fun little project to focus on.
Tomorrow I will start with Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, recommended to me by a friend from England, who was in town for the past five days (Portland was the final destination of her epic continental U.S. road trip). She said that if I liked Anne Tyler then I should like Robinson, so… we’ll see!
It is a nice feeling, knowing that books are friends that will always be there for me. (This isn’t as cheesy as it sounds since it’s something my mother told me.)