My bookcase is one of the most present objects in my life. I use it constantly, and the more the shelves are weighed down, the more I can feel my interests growing. My bookshelf hold my memories, my passions, and my livelihood.
To be clear, I have two bookshelves. There is one that actually sits on the floor of my closet. It is a lightweight, tan bookshelf that holds the novels I pick up in flea markets or grab from the library’s get-rid-of pile. That bookshelf is not the one I am referring to. The particular bookshelf I am talking about is black, almost reaches my ceiling, and is one of the very first thing you notice about my room. That bookshelf is much more precious to me than the closet bookshelf.
I have had the black bookshelf for almost a year now. My father bought it for my 16th birthday and went through the hassle of teaching me how to read the instructions on how to put it together, even though they were poorly translated from Chinese. He took me to go buy nails when the ones that arrived with it were the wrong size, and he let me nail in the majority of them.
I have a list of books that my father and I have put together that we consider essential reading. My goal is to finish the list by the time I finish college, and I am well on my way. Those are the books that I put on my black bookshelf. Because I buy my books at a faster rate than I am capable of reading, two and a half shelves are filled with books that I mostly haven’t read. The second half of the third shelf is filled with half-full notebooks, and the other shelves hold my shoes. My bookshelf is uniquely mine, and I love it in the same way I love the plants growing on my windowsill. It is invariably part of my being.
That being said, I love what my bookshelf holds on two and a half shelves more. I can find bits and pieces of myself scattered through those books, and whenever I grow bored, a new adventure awaits me on each new page. Whenever I return from one of my trips into other worlds, I am a new person. It is not always a big change, but it’s always there if I look hard enough. It would be impossible for me to pick a favorite, because each one becomes my favorite as my moods shift frequently.
It has been Elphaba, Odysseus, and Raskolnikov who encouraged me to create my own characters, starting with bad fan fiction and continuing to novelettes. I have yet to write my own book, but last week I began planning one out. Finishing a book will not be a problem for me. I usually have trouble making my short stories short. I don’t view writing as work so much as a hobby, a passion to be cultivated.
I have always loved the magic that words can weave, and it is my goal to weave some magic of my own.
