Even if I didn’t let the cat out of the bag (metaphorically, of course), you would all figure out that what I’m about to describe didn’t actually happen in real time in the real world as we know it, where the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It must have been a dream or a half-waking state – as when it’s 4AM and Pooms, the senior cat, has realized that her food bowl is empty or she needs her neck scratched – and we’re pulled from our bed and called into duty.

What I imagined is that I was standing on a step ladder going through the shelves of one of my bookcases, trying to winnow down my collection of novels to a manageable few. There I was, holding a copy of The Cornish Trilogy, three novels in one volume, by the Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, when I found myself in the following conversation. It was as if I were talking to the disembodied voice of the writer – which on sober reflection couldn’t have happened. (He died in 1995.)

‘I can see that you’re holding something of mine; are you planning to keep it or put it in the discard pile?’

‘Well, I have this one, plus I also have The Deptford Trilogy. I did get to read the first part of that, which I thought was pretty impressive.’

‘Which doesn’t tell me what you plan to do, now that you’re moving.’

‘I’m wavering, dealing with too much to read and not enough time to do it in.’

‘Tell me about it, not having enough time, now that I’m not with you anymore. I never got to finish, well, never mind. However, I know that while my novels were collecting dust on your shelves, you’ve gone through every one of Jane Austen’s novels at least twice.’

(I wanted to tell him that I go through Austen the way that some of my confrères go through Daf Yomi, but I realized he wouldn’t get the reference.)

‘I can understand your admiration for her work, but what about The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz? You found time to read through that.’

‘That was a special situation. We were going on a trip to Egypt, and I was trying to get in the mood. But you tend to write about places that don’t really exist, so there will never be that sense of I-need-to-read-this-now because I’m going there next week.’

‘Bottom line. If you’re not planning on keeping my work, can you at least find a dignified place to send them, not nestled next to some two-week old broccoli in the dumpster.’

‘I’m thinking of ways to repurpose your work, make it more palatable to a larger audience than just me. Maybe we could cross off your name from the cover and replace it with David Baldacci and claim it’s a thriller. I know that would be rather demeaning, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Or, how about this? We’ll say you’re Roberta Davies, and we’ll say that The Cornish Trilogy is about a torrid love affair in Cornwall. No, I have a better idea; we’ll say The Deptford Trilogy is a sequel to the Stepford Wives, which will attract a lot of chic-lit fans. On second thought, that won’t work. But, now that I think of it, there is a lot of mythology and magic in your work. If we can just move some of it into the fantasy section, no one will notice, and we might get some more interest. Problem is that each volume is 900 pages, bigger than most people’s attention spans. This is not easy. Let’s put both trilogies back and let’s see what else I can dump…’

As you can tell, my brow was fevered, my brain working on overdrive. I need to calm down and focus. Remember we are still dealing with

The Gentle Art of Downsizing

Let’s see what else there is. It’s not just my novels that need sorting. It’s not even all the other books in my collection.  I have shelves and shelves of LP’s, (Long Playing, 33 1/3 RPM records, for the kids out there some of them dating back to the 1960’s). I can’t just throw them out. (Well, I could, but I’d rather not.) But the first thingI need to do is figure out why my record player is not working. There used to be places in Jerusalem where I could bring it to be fixed. My son-in-law recommended a store a few months ago but when I went there, it was closed – presumably for the day. OK, I went back a few weeks later. By then, the store and the surrounding buildings were cordoned off for renovation. Another place that might have helped is now a health club. O tempora, o mores! I don’t know what to do. There are folks out there somewhere between the Pacific Ocean and the Jordan River who would be delighted to wake up one day and find my collection on their doorstop. But how to get it to them? Aye, that’s the rub.

Still, we haven’t yet gotten to what’s most troubling. When we arrived in The Land seventeen years ago, there in our lift were some thirty boxes of my photographs and sixty-five framed pieces from the last exhibit I had in NJ before we left. In a fit of optimism, I even brought with us the darkroom equipment that I had been using for over thirty years – just in case. It’s all there, taking up space in our storage room, where it’s been for fifteen years.

Out of curiosity, I looked on eBay the other day. There are enlargers and random darkroom equipment for anyone who wants. (There are even new enlargers for sale at the large photography store in NYC.) All I would have to do is set up an account on eBay, create a listing for my equipment, and, assuming I get a buyer, arrange to have the whole kit and kaboodle sent (probably) to The States. Do I have the strength for all of that – as opposed to putting everything by the dumpster? Good question. I wouldn’t take either side in a bet.

Misery loves company. So does insanity. My brother’s wife, Abby, is in a similar predicament. She and Frank have an apartment in Manhattan and a house in the Berkshires, which together have much more stuff than I can possibly imagine – including all of Abby’s artwork: watercolors, drawings, sketches, you name it. And because she usually has an exhibit every summer in a gallery in the Berkshires, even more of her work is framed. Where will her work ultimately wind up? There’s only so much you can expect of your children, their children, cousins, nieces and nephews, and the rest of the ganze mishpacha. Few people have the space and the resources to properly store a family member’s lifetime of effort. And speaking for myself, you’re not thinking along those lines when you’re doing the work. The only artist who made it easy for her survivors was my sister, Marilyn June. My mother was storing about a dozen of my sister’s paintings and works in mixed media, which wound up being divided between Frank and me. Everything I have of hers is hanging on various walls in our apartment. Easy-peasy. Maybe I should have thought of that all those years… But I didn’t, and now it’s too late.