The wife and I have been packing up for a move across town. Which raises the issue of what we shall put in our boxes. The answer: all the stuff in our lives.
This is, naturally, both strictly true and entirely false. We must transport every object in our current apartment to the waiting spaces of our new one. So it’s all coming with us. Except for all of the things that we are throwing out.
But what an absurd enterprise, moving. We could discard practically everything and begin this business of physical acquisitions anew. We could. It’s possible, and not entirely preposterous. We won’t. Instead, we’ll fill a truck, and things will be easier that way. It’s always easier to keep. That’s always a comfortable choice. And in some instances — my wife and I both make our livelihood through our computers, so we’ll need those; and clothes seem to be a necessity, so those we’ll retain, too — possession is indeed requisite for survival. We say that books are essential. If you’re reading this blog, you likely share that view. But honestly: beyond the book you are reading, which books must you see in your living space? If you read “Goodbye, My Brother,” close the book, and then hand Cheever to a friend, does the story leave you?
Back to the boxes. I think of a famous Zen line from Shunryu Suzuki, speaking of the practice of concentrating on your breath in an upright posture, mind clear and open like an unfilled box. “Strictly speaking, for a human being there is no other practice than this practice. There is no other way of life than this way of life.”
I wonder, as I write, about the stuff I choose to pack into each sentence. To call our boxes “unfilled” assumes that boxes must be filled with something. That’s not true. Calling a box a box is enough. To write a sentence is to assume that we must put something into it. But aren’t the best sentences the ones that just are? Like a good box, a good sentence designs a perfect space. Put into that space what you choose.