It feels super weird to be burning my first 59 journals, even though I have preserved them as PDF documents.

I mean, I poured my heart and soul into each of those many pages. They were written in my own hand.  They’re the “children” of my evolving personhood; they carry my decades’ younger essence in ways that a duplicate can’t really (uh) duplicate!!

But it’s necessary. They take up too much space in our storage area, and no one is ever going to want to read them. And if they do, they can get them from me via scanned documents.

So they are NOT GONE FOREVER. The original volumes are just dissolving into ashes, which will eventually enrich the earth from which the pages came. So, it’s a “returning” of sorts that’s happening…

And it still hurts. It’s a little like a death.  But these volumes can be resurrected by anyone who cares to do so. They’re saved in PDF form.  So, hurray for that!

Now, if I can just get the freaking Genius Scan to  work again, I will be able to continue to preserve the 150 or so that remain so I can burn those originals up eventually, too. Genius Scan says it isn’t their app that’s not working, and Dropbox says it’s not their app that’s not working.  So, I will have to reach out to my internet provider and see if there is something there that’s causing it to time out before the connection is made.  I have downloaded (uploaded?) another backup smartphone scanner, but don’t want to commit to it unless I have to. I LOVE Genius Scan, if I can get it to work again!

What’s gonna hurt WORSE by far is leaving behind the physical copies of the books I’ve written when I move to Costa Rica.  I need to sell them or give them away at author cost before I go, all of them. I have them all on Kindle, and I can save room in the boxes if I take the few copies of each out that I’ve put in already. I decided to do that last night, but haven’t taken them out yet. There is still plenty of time.

So, hey! If you’ve been wanting my books — any of them — please let  me know which ones. I’ll sell them at author cost plus the cost of shipping them to you via Media Mail.  I’d like to find homes for them all!!!  I’ll personalize them to you or to anyone you want me to (unless you just want them signed with my name)…