Leave it to Doyle

I have recently begun a small series of rearrangings in an effort to slow the entropy of householding and acquisitions. Books in their shelves, DVDs in their own, the abject horror that is the Pyrex lid drawer. This is, I suppose, an expected consequence of my recent return to full-time housewifery and writing, a likely outcome of time spent once more in my home where I operate best. 

How to categorize them though? One could file these little excursions under Housewifery: The Lovingly Misdirected (ask me about the state of my toilets). But one might find they fit equally well under the banner of Writing… Writing: Crucial Tasks Which Crop Up the Moment Writing is About to Be Done. Yes, I think so. What we have here is a multitasker. Excellent. That makes one of us.

I was just perusing one wee section of the Ottinger library yesterday in search of something or other (yes, I was actually writing), coincidentally in the very section that has been the subject of my regulatory attentions and affections of late. And what do I see there, in the freshly organized ranks? 

Chaos. Entropy renewed. Mysterious maneuverings among the citizenry.

First off, we have disorder which I myself orchestrated, Chet Raymo divided amongst two different bookcases. This was, at the time, the only way my conflicted brain could manage to place him, but it has nevertheless not failed to irk me since. This may need to be remedied, pigeonholing be damned.

And soon we venture into anarchy sans reason; as I’m the only one who touches these books, one would think that they would stay put. Ah, but they are wiley devils. From Chet through Oliver and so much Barbara Brown Taylor it makes me smile, we come soon to our first unexplained aberration…

The Tao of Pooh, it seems, has inserted itself plop in the middle of the vast and glorious Anne Lamott section. Looking smug I might add, like he got away with something. Saint Anne, of course, is fine with this intrusion, smiling at him lovingly from within her gentle pages, but how did that troublesome bear find his new home for hibernation?

And Brian Doyle, what have we here? Mr. Doyle now finds himself inexplicably split off from himself, separated by quite the scraggly bunch. Sue Monk Kidd, Alan Jones, Robin Wall Kimmerer, but wait there’s more! Richard Rohr, Aldo Leopold, and Thich Nhat Hahn also stand betwixt. A veritable army of visionaries. How on earth did One Long River of Song find itself so far afield from its Doyle compatriots? 

You know, this one I might have expected, now that I’m really thinking about it. For One Long River is the lone posthumous collection in the mix, and it may very well be that the ghost of Doyle who rambles in amongst the mystics was sick of his own company, sampling without regard for the time space continuum, from the rich traditions of his neighbors. I may yet find his march continuing on down the ranks, bent for the Raymo that lives here, yet there.

Sounds just about right. 

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And what of the Pyrex lids? Surprising no one, entropy is speedy in the realm of all lid collections. The Pyrex, the Tupperware, the Anchor Hocking of both the glass-bottomed variety and the melted plastic, they are all in there rearranging themselves as we speak, snickering at me as I walk by.

I’m not sure why I expected anything else from the books.

If you need me, I’ll be tracking the ghost of Brian Doyle,
KJ

The Future Library of the Ottinger Estates

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