POOF!

Until today, my email contained an archive of all my correspondence with every client whose book I had ever edited, some comprising more than 100 exchanges. This was in addition to all the versions of electronic files pertaining to their books I had stored as documents.

Recent email struggles that took up more than a week made me reconsider the necessity of keeping so much stuff that NO ONE is every going to look at again. Also it’s bloody hard to migrate those files from Sympatico (which provides admirably intuitive archiving) to Gmail (which does not). So now I find myself deleting any correspondence pertaining to finished jobs, as well as going through all my other folders to see what needs to be printed out for my archives at the Concordia University Library, what needs to be transformed into a document file and stored on my hard drive, and what serves no real purpose, and should be discarded.

When it comes to discarding material stuff, I have a reputation for being ruthless. And indeed, when I gave my son my office to turn into his music studio, I threw out 25 recycling bags full of paper, including all my graduate school essays, most of the notes for courses I once taught, and alas, too many drafts of poems and essays which I ought to have kept. Luckily, I was able to track down most of the essays on line and either print them out or retype them for their inclusion in Artful Flight: Essays and Reviews 1989-2019 brought out by The Porcupine’s Quill in 2022.

Perhaps it was this experience that made me hold on to all these dead letters? I am not sure. But anyhow, it’s all gone now.

POOF!!