I feel as if my reading life has suffered since I've been in Portland. With most of my books in storage, I've had to completely disrupt my life-long pattern of segueing back and forth among well-read and less familiar materials. Always I've let the tides of coincidence and curiosity carry me into my reading, but since moving I've no longer been able to do that. Having a library within walking distance is a help, but it is not a replacement for being the library.

I didn't quite realize how much my reading patterns had shifted until this morning, when I tried to describe them in a letter to my friend Baron. Since moving, I've done more crossword puzzles, read more magazine articles, paid more attention to the news. Part of that is Trump's fault, but part of it is simply being book-bereft. It will be interesting to see how my reading path shifts again, once I get my library back. The books will be the same, but now they will be in different rooms, on different shelves, so I will see them differently. Every little thing affects a reading life.