This week marks the end of my summer at home. Next Friday the 13th of October, Lea and I leave for Italy. We will be there for seven weeks during which time I will work with Davide Barbini and Amy Florence Mosely.
This week we began the process of cleaning the house, doing minor repairs and having photographs made for the realtors who will be listing our house in the third week of October. We are also having to rebuild the stair to our roof terrace which was poorly built and had become unsafe. Just what we needed as we try and wrap things up. A very frustrating experience. However, it has been made much less painful by the professionalism of the architect Fernando Abreu of Studio Abreu and his construction crew.
I carted 25 boxes of books to MEL (Mérida English Language Library)—and what a painful process that was deciding on which of my babies to keep and which to pass along to other readers. At least I know they will be read. Still, it is never easy for me to get rid of books. The ones that I have decided to keep and move to Portland are fiction, biographies, art books and my book collection on books and libraries. I kept some of my my favorite authors including Julian Barnes, John Irving, Umberto Eco, Kazuo Ishiguro (winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature this week), Ian McEwan, Tom Wolfe and John Fowles. We will be continue to discard and give things away—getting ready for the art and household packers. The process has begun. Stay tuned.
