Chapter 13: In which I contemplate the sheer amount of paper in my possession

You know that question that pops up in those inane 'send these to all your friends' quizzes, if your house was on fire and you could only grab one thing, what would it be? Well, I have gradually become obsessed with answering it, and in the process have become aware of just how many unique and irreplaceable things are contained in my single little room.

Take for instance, my handmade angel treetopper that I made in kindergarten at church. It's a paper snowcone holder with a paper doily folded in half to form wings and a head made of a Styrofoam ball. The only thing that has prompted me to keep this little artifact instead of just letting go of it like any normal sane person is that it is my one manifestation of my stubbornness and my love of all things sparkly. I was a painfully shy kid who only wanted to be plopped in a corner somewhere and completely ignored thank you very much, and yet I could not finish my angel until she had glitter somewhere about her person. There was no glitter to be had on the table, and so I did something completely unthinkable for me: I asked a teacher. And this teacher had to go and get out some glitter specifically to appease me. That's my one stick-it-to-the-damn-baptist-church moment, and it makes me smile.

I wouldn't, however shed a tear over the loss of that particular piece of workmanship, and I might even be a little grateful for an excuse to finally let it go. But what about all of the other things that couldn't be replaced? I love my admittedly small music collection, but even that can be gotten again if absolutely necessary. The files on my computer would be missed very dearly, but still, there's nothing of absolute value stored on my hard drive if it were damaged beyond repair. No, the thing that worries me the most is not even my books. They would be loudly and thoroughly mourned, but I could still buy copies of them if need be. The thing that keeps me up at night wondering if it would be too paranoid to invest in an oversized fireproof container--hell, a room even, a bomb shelter--is the thought of losing my notebooks.

I have kept a journal since the moment I began to think independently at the age of 12 or 13. I have over 22 spiral bound notebooks chronicling my every thought in the past seven years. In them are not only my most private musings and the evidence of an ever-expanding mind and viewpoint, but quotes and song lyrics that illustrated my feelings and gives a sort of timeline for all of my emotions and conclusions. You'll find my huge looping letters giving way to small neat rows, and back again to a more matured loop-de-loop scrawl that most still find hard to decipher. It is these things more than any other--more than family photographs--that are completely and utterly irreplaceable.

And it is the thought that maybe just maybe something actually will happen that leaves me running through this scenario. Will someone be there to herd our neurotic, high-strung puppy dog out the door? Will people be yelling for me to get out as quickly as possible while I holler back a glib "Just a minute!" dashing into my room and rummage under the bed for the two separate boxes stuffed with the chronicles of my adventures? Stopping then to also grab the three other journals currently residing on my bookshelf along with the two notebooks of old (and really bad) poetry that equally expresses the timeline of my mind.

That is the image and the answer that I had all sewn up in my mind, until lately when I began to realize that I have yet another notebook that is just as equally precious, one that was not in existence when I planned out this escape route: the white binder holding the rough ideas and drafts for the story currently known as "Walking in the Dark." The story it has taken me seven years to work up the courage to write. And then, with another stab of panic, I realize that is not the only binder that needs to be saved. The black one sitting right next to it on the shelf, the one with the cute little holographic skull and brain sticker on the front, the one with every story idea that I have ever written down.

So now, instead of grabbing the one item this question's author imagines, I am laden instead with two heavy boxes full of spiral bound notebooks, having stopped to stuff the larger and more empty one with three more single-subject notebooks and two three-subject ones, grab the two stuffed-to-the brim binders as well as the three-subject notebook with the beginnings of the first draft of the story.

But why stop there? As long as we're down there, why not grab the four binders filled with carefully selected and inspiring magazine pages which weigh about a pound and a half each? And then that old history book that I've converted into a book of poetry, pasting in the pages myself? And what about all of that one-of-a-kind artwork that I've made for my walls, not to mention my entire drawer of drawings, ranging from eight years ago to the present? And then there's that hand-written, hand-illustrated, hand-bound, single-copy-ever-made book that my sister made especially for me for Christmas.

Will I ever get out of this burning house? Or by now have I made so many trips that the front lawn is strewn with items, and I am now suffering third-degree burns? Will people have to restrain me so I don't run back into the house with its roof caving in, while I wail about my stacks (and stacks, and stacks) of folders full of articles and interviews and useful information burning up right now in my dresser drawers? How many people would it take to hold me down so that I don't bolt in order to retrieve my little box of bookmarks, all of those little paint samples and sketches of my sister's and random quotes and found things, not to mention my even larger box full of even more paint samples (The reason why I am blacklisted from Lowe's)? And who would be there to stop me when my love of books finally won out over the thought that I can just buy new ones, running back through those flames, dodging falling timbers and suffocating on smoke?

I've always loved the zen idea of detachment from things, from owning so much stuff, but somehow I've just never been able to manage it. All of these objects, these individual possessions, are not merely things to me, but irreplaceable artifacts of myself. They are the physical manifestations of my consistently chaotic mind. They are not things, they are me. And so I am reduced to risking my (metaphorical) life and limb to rescue them. Either that or just build my own bomb shelter. That idea is looking better and better...