Zoom

Zoom in, if you can, on what’s behind me. Try to get a more refined look at the names on the spines on the shelves.

DeLillo. McCarthy. Strout. Murakami. Wallace. This is what I want to show you. What I carefully frame behind me.

A tiny bit of lemon-cake yellow wall perpendicular to summer-sky blue paints me with just a hint of creativity.

If the framing is successful, you will imagine me sitting down to read those novels, stamped, like USDA Prime steak, with “winner of the Pulitzer Prize” (roaring fireplace, snifter of brandy and smoking jacket optional) as the trivial world spins outside.

You cannot imagine that outside my constructed frame there could ever be piles of yellowing Avengers and X-Men comics or entire afternoons lost to Love It or List It.

No, my world is nothing more than what I am willing to show you. No need to imagine beyond these borders to see the ragged clutter I try to hide away.