So I’ve got this thing - happens every Summer: I clean.
Just for maybe a few days here and there, something in my brain decides ‘Hey, you know, I think we’re going to take care of that bookshelf today’ or ‘That desk looks real bad and just at this particular moment am I noticing it so let’s get on that’.
And it’s always so convincing that I oblige and soon I’ve spent four hours on what always happens to be the most beautiful day of the week, cleaning off my bookshelves.
'Four hours?' you may ask. 'Surely they’re just some books that need dusting - how long could that take?' You see friends, they are not just some books that need dusting. (I mean, physically, yes. I suppose they are BUT!) There is something strange and oddly satisfying in pulling every copy out of its place, many of their backings sticking to the wood underneath from months of not moving. They seem so little, you see, sitting in their clean, straight, white rows, arranged the previous year in some probably well-thought out order (hence the four hours).
They look so little, so tame, that way that seeing them as they come down, stacked upon the floor in piles like little skyscrapers, part of me can feel like a giant looking down on them, but a lot of me feels very small indeed, all their glossy and finger worn covers looking back up and forcing me to carefully navigate their precariousness of words.
An accidental nudge stops my heart a beat as I fear for ripped pages and potentially broken toes.
They all come down and the white of the naked shelves is somehow inspirational, somehow daunting. Do I arrange by color, title, theme? I recall that one Summer I set my mind on arrangement by author and I shudder at the thought.
There is a separate pile for those I know I will not read, those who have lingered in their dusty corners and never moved for far too long. I can’t help but hesitate though, thinking on "Toy Story" - not my toys but my books moving me to imagine what they must be thinking as they’re cast out onto the forlorn shelves of The Back Room.
At some point it has to just be done and I have to make myself stop staring and actually pick them up.
You know when you’re writing an essay, and you aren’t sure where to start, only instead of having too few ideas for a thesis, you have way too many and have to narrow it down? Yeah. It’s a little like that.
And then four hours happens.
And then I look around and realize my feet are still tiptoeing cautiously around the room where the skyscrapers used to be, only now there are just three books left and they’re not even on the floor waiting to be stepped on.
And then I stick them into the empty spots on the shelves so there are no holes left.
And I'm like wow. So, uh, now what?
Time for the desk.
