This will have to be quick because I'm going to Stratford in the morning and of course I have to get my swim in before I leave to catch the Festival bus.

This morning I pulled a box that had already been vetted some years ago. It's labelled Bill: Mementos, and it comprises my late husband's life in microcosm, from his birth certificate, Sunday school certificate, report cards, a diary he kept for his 14th year, career moves, to his wedding tie, and a heap of love cards and self-writ poems, to a manila envelope full of obituaries. I didn't cry. I don't cry any more. I was sober but calm and -still - feeling very loved and very grateful.

We're having a family reunion at the end of the month to celebrate son John's 60th birthday and the official welcome of my two great-grandchildren. I wanted to check this box to see if there are any artefacts or mementos that someone would like to keep. I said I was going to be ruthless with my files this time around because it would be the last time. I forgot about this box. Perhaps it's penultimate.

I'll think about it tomorrow.

Thank you, Natalia, for the informative comment on yesterday's blog. I really appreciate it when someone responds to something I've said. It means that someone out there is reading my blog. I looked up arshin:

"The basic unit is the Russian cubit, called the arshin, which has been in use since the 16th century. It was standardized by Peter the Great in the 18th century to measure exactly twenty-eight English inches (71.12 cm)." (Wikipedia)

Thank you. But.

Did you, or someone, get the point I was trying to make? I wasn't really talking about Tolstoy or the details of that trek for land. I used his story as a cautionary analogy of what I've been doing, comparing that poor man's unrealistic greed for land with mine for books.

"At my back I always hear/Time's wing-ed chariot hurrying near."

I have to listen to it as I launch into what will probably be my last filing project. I'm enjoying it as I discover clippings and tear sheets and memos and letters and ideas that I stashed for future attention and development. But I'm trying to be ruthless as I acknowledge the lack of time remaining to deal with them all. I wish I could give me with my next shipment of paper to my university's files. I could offer a seminar or a series of talks presenting my ideas for novels, plays, movies, essays, whatever, that I won't have time to write. But that would be presuming that someone else wold be interested in what fascinates me. The good news is that I have found lots of blog material.

Stay tuned.