Paper Paper Paper Paper Paper

It's Friday!  My other workdays end on the late side for a teacher -- I finish teaching at 5:15.  But because our school is Jewish, I finish at 1:45 on Fridays.  Today is about the most magnificent day we've had in a long time, so I intend to take full advantage of my free time with a long walk.

I also have a plan for the several days off that are coming up in the next few weeks: Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot.  The Jewish calendar can pose difficulties for Christian teachers during other portions of the year.  My children's schools all follow secular (read: sort of Christian) calendars, so I am seldom on vacation when they are.  And we go longer into the summer to make up for days missed earlier in the year.  But in the fall, my favorite season, it's a real pleasure for a Christian to have the Jewish holidays off.  Long walks as the leaves change, free time for reading, leisure in which to plan the next several weeks of teaching, and This Year's Paper Project.

There is paper everywhere in this house.  Paper paper paper paper paper.  There is solidly covered paper, in the form of hundreds and hundreds of books.  (We have a library instead of a fourth bedroom, with built-in bookcases covering the two long walls.  There are also bookcases in almost every other room, and if there isn't a bookcase somewhere along a wall, there's a pile of books.)  There is glossily-covered paper, in the form of the countless magazines to which I am addicted.  (A sampling: Traveler, Arizona Highways, Blue Ridge, Traverse, Coastal Living (yes, I have an active fantasy life), Birders' World, Christian Century, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly, Commonweal, Sojourners, People, and on and on.  And on.)  There is black-and-white newsprint, in the form of numerous back issues of the Sunday New York Times and, especially, the Travel section and Book Review.

Then there's the work paper.  I have boxes and boxes of books and magazines on divorce law (my previous life) and on teaching writing, literature, and social studies.  I have streams of lesson plans, and tons of magazines that I've saved "for  just the right moment."  And there's the family paper:  bills, financial statements, tax returns, wills, school records, college application materials, insurance records.  And the sentimental paper:  letters, journals, calendars, boxes of kids' artwork and essays.  There's even the extended family paper -- a few (really, just a few) boxes of letters and other items that I've lifted from my grandmother's attic. 

I don't think I need all of this paper.  I think most of it needs to leave.  As I recall, the last big clean-out that I did was when my kids were in middle school.  I discovered that I was in possession of, among many other things, three full-year sets of fourth grade Montessori math packets.  Should I keep one as a souvenir, I wondered?  Oh, please.  I realized that we had reached the point where everyone in the house knew how to do long division, and that we did not need ANY fourth grade math packets at all.  What a turning point in my life.

But, alas, that was probably five years ago.  The paper has reproduced itself exponentially since then.  I'm sure that I, myself, have had nothing to do with it, but I am the one who is going to have to clean it out.

I'm in the wrong season, I know.   My Paper Project does bear some resemblance to the Passover Project that my Jewish friends and colleagues have to embark upon each year, when they must clear their homes of every speak of bread.  However, I plan to carry on.  My goal is for my Paper Project to be over long before next spring's Passover rolls around.  Then I can start on the Photo Project.

Walked: 3.5 miles.

Walked yesterday: 3 miles.