Have your destination in mind

When I was a mere slip of a bookwright — a veritable inchbookworm — I stumbled upon several books that rang out to me like bells across a silent snowfield. And, strangely, usually, shortly after I absorbed them, they vanished.

Not because I personally lost them: Never! Books which belonged to me lived secure on a bedroom bookshelf. (Or somewhere else in the house, like Dad’s cookbook nook or Mom’s fiction shelves.) No: these were library books, school library books most often but also sometimes village library property. And once I departed that school and our family moved away from that village, the books might as well have never existed.

As you can tell, I was not one of those methodical children who kept a book diary from their tot-hood, diligently recording every book they read, its author, year of publication, publisher, imprint, and quotes that made a Great Impression upon their young minds.

If I was luckier than lucky, I stumbled over them again when I was old enough to notice such things. Such was the case with Norton Juster’s superb The Phantom Tollbooth. When I rediscovered it in junior high school, I pressed my paperback copy into the hands of every remotely willing reader in my circle of friends. I still have it: it’s battered, scruffy, but I treasure all the pencilled marginal notes and ripostes among my pals.

Why am I suddenly recalled to the Phantom Tollbooth? Because I’ve never forgotten the three precautionary signs (to be used in a precautionary fashion) that Milo unpacks with the tollbooth itself, in the very first chapter. (You can read that chapter on NPR here.) The third sign reads:

It’s so obvious, Juster must have grinned to himself at the prospect of making Jules Feiffer illustrate it. If you want to travel the direct route to … that destination … you better know where you want to go.

It turns out, having a destination in mind is also invaluable when you attempt to divest yourself of treasured belongings. About which I will explain more in my next post.