The shelves are bare

I've written before about the frustration of having one's books packed up rather than shelved close at hand, and for today's entry in January's letters series, I'll quote Robert Lowell on the subject, from a letter he sent to Elizabeth Bishop on September 11, 1975:

It must [be] a freedom [to] have your books out and on the wall. When I moved from Boston to New York, there were no bookcases for two months, and the books stood in their boxes ten feet high, like some backward child's pyramid. I couldn't even despair.

Given Bishop's capability for despair, I'm not sure I'd have phrased it that way, but the feeling is nonetheless familiar.