The Clever Hopes Expire

August 1.  A certain restlessness settles in.  I turn the page on my wall calendar.  20.  Four times five.  I check again.  And again.  Then I look around.  20 doesn’t seem big enough.  It never does on August 1. 

 On May 1, June seems far away.  On June 1, September can barely be seen.  June 1 is for settling in. August 1 is unsettling.

I have a friend who is a brilliant essayist.  Brilliant.  He wishes he was a poet.  On a whim, I just hunted down some of his poetry.  He is a brilliant essayist. 

Why is it so hard to be content with who we are?  Why is it so hard for others to be content with who we are?  Why is August 1 so unsettling?  Three questions.  One answer.

I just don’t know what that answer is.  I wish I did.

Do Butlers Burgle Banks?  Wodehouse asked that.  I thought I would write about Butlers.  But I wrote about the calendar.  And that question is on the top of the books awaiting review. And it suddenly seems like the same question.  Are Butlers and Bank Burglars mutually exclusive categories?  Can a perfect butler be a perfect bank burglar?

I have a lot of books awaiting review.  I have even more I wanted to read this summer.  It’s August 1.  Some of the latter will be left unread.  Will they feel abandoned?  The books for Fall Semester are arriving; it is a tall pile.  Menacing.  The Summer Books look at the Fall Books with anger and jealousy.  The Fall Books will all be read.  They have been assigned.  Summer books exist only for whim.  They are victims of serendipity.

Only half the Fall Books are here. It will take two piles.

The Fall Books have no home.  My office is in disarray.  Array must return by the end of the 20.

The return will not take the same form as the original.  The filing cabinet is going.  A bookshelf will take its place.  Filing Cabinets are obsolete.

Bookcases are also obsolete.  But not in my office.  My office is a museum. 

Does that make me a curator?

Is “Do Bank Burglars Buttle?” the same as the question Wodehouse asked?

“Buttle” really is a word.  I had to look it up to be sure. First used in 1918.  According to the OED.

If I was a butler, would I be more or less content?  I should read Remains of the Day.  It is in the summer pile.

There isn’t actually a physical summer pile.  The summer pile is a mental construct.  The fall pile is real.  I just realized.  That is the beginning of the answer.

It is true.  Writing helps clarify thought. 

I don’t know where to go to find the rest of the answer.

It is raining now.  Wind.  High Wind.  Thunder.  Presumably Lightning.  It was not raining when I started to write.