Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Before Me

A day of solitude lies before me.
My first in 6 weeks.
Sometimes on days like this, I practice silence as well.
Well, except for the committee in my head.
They never shut up.
I've gotten much better at recognizing their voices though.
Voices of my ego, not of my soul even though they try to convince me otherwise.

The biggest difference between dearest one and I
is that he is a big picture thinker
and I tend to get bogged down in details.

I remember once a friend told me a story
of when they had company coming and her house was a mess.
Everyone flew to a task. Picking up newspapers,
clearing the table, vacuuming the living room, wiping down the bathroom.
And there was one of her daughters, expending much effort by
dusting each individual leaf on a rather large house plant.
My friend was utterly frustrated.
I understood her daughter's actions completely.

Which is why you might come to my house
and find things in disarray
but my bookshelf has every single book in alignment
like soldiers on a march.
While a pair of dirty socks (or more likely, one sock)
might be peeking out from under the bookshelf
ready to be a soft landing
for a book that will never fall.

I wrote this post while thinking of the bookshelf in my livingroom. Ha. Then I remembered the bookshelf in the spare room. This one may harbour a dirty sock. I won't be spending my day of solitude finding out though.

Which kind of bookshelf do you have?

5 comments:

Joy said...

My bookshelves are of the c) all of the above category. Some are completely tidy, others are... not. It all depends, on the day, the most recent searchers of the tomes, the alignment of the moon and sun and stars (I mostly jest), and if I just NEED at that moment to organise it by genre, author, and size. :)

(And I am relishing my solitude this morning, but will have to break it shortly for work-related purposes. *sigh*)

Rae said...

I hope you enjoyed your day of solitude.
My bookshelves spill out on to side tables and were once arranged in some semblance of an order. At least I do keep my cookbooks on one shelf and I try to keep the guest room stocked with books that others might enjoy reading. In the bottom of my office closet is a box teeming with books about recovering from sexual abuse, sexual addiction, codependency, overeating and all other unmentionables. Thanks for the chance to reflect on my bookshelves.

Jess Mistress of Mischief said...

Yup, those bookshelves look familiar. I've got a few, and then there's the stack on the nightstand next to the bed.

I'm glad that I don't have as much time as I one did to read them... I'm busy living a life worthy of the journaling... at least for me it is anyway, which is miraculous!

TechnoBabe said...

Books are like friends here, they are all over and the book shelves are in disarray but somehow it is okay. We are able to find the books we want. And they are never returned to the same place.

Pru said...

My bookcase - well, you've seen my bookcase. It's overcrowded, books in conventional spine-out form buried behind books stacked in to fit however they can. I will say, the first ones in are exceptionally organized, by size and author and alphabetical by title. The extras are...well, organized by the fact that they fit into the holes left by the other books.
Pupsmagoo has just started trying to pull them all off the shelves though. So we'll see how long any semblance of order lasts.
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