There’s a nice thread on Twitter maligning ‘those people’ who arrange their books by color. It is a really good rebuke to me because I was reclining on the couch two days ago mentally rearranging the books on the shelves in front of me, and one of the ways I did it was by color. I lay there and wondered if it would really be as visually soothing as I imagined. Fortunately, I didn’t have the will to get up and do it. In fact, I got a package in the mail full of more books and shoved them in a blank space on the shelf* right then and there. And their spines were a veritable explosion of color.
What I find very interesting is the idea that some people organize their books. This is a curious proposition. Before the Twitter thread, I read a whole blog post delineating ten different ways you could organize your books. I read the post and sat there, still confused. I’m seeing all the words, but they aren’t really bringing me to any moment of true understanding…organize the books? Wha???
Actually, I’m playing too dumb. I do organize our books. I have a singular sharp delineation between those books that are Matt’s and those that belong to me. That doesn’t mean that they don’t sometimes end up on the same shelf as each other, but when they do, I know exactly where they are–my whole self attuned to this important reality whenever I walk into the room. Those are His. These ones are Mine. If he reads one of Mine, he had better give it back. There is no other categorization.
You might think I sound crazy but a friend said it better. ‘If he reads a book first, I can’t have anything to do with it.’ This, I think, is the truest and best definition of marriage. We might occasionally, because of the perversity of fate and circumstances, be forced to use the same toothbrush, but we should never ever ever ever be forced to read the same books.
I mean, sometimes we have to, but it makes me nervous and uncomfortable.
I think what I need to do, before I die (which could happen any time–my funeral notes are in my tablet, and the children know the password) is to take all my books and arrange them in a huge glorious stack, and then take all of his books and put them on the other side of the room, and then go one by one with the children through both of the stacks so that they will Know which ones were their father’s and which ones were mine. Then I will need to haunt the the children–like the rosy fingered dawn–at the hour of my death, to make sure that they, my books, are never scattered or given away. What they do with their father’s is not such a pressing concern to me. He writes in his, and bends the spines, and leaves them out in the rain.
Actually, I think it would be better if I just did not die. The preserving guardianship of my books probably cannot be entrusted to another generation.
Sometimes, out of the generosity of my spirit, I go through all of Matt’s books and suggest that he give some of them away. I am not so profligate in the acquisition of books, and never have even one book too many. There has never been a time when I needed to ‘get rid’ of a book. But Matt, well, he has lots of books that I’m sure he doesn’t need any more. Sometimes I go through and line the ones I think he should give way along the wall, and then I tell him about minimalism, and how it’s important not to have too much stuff. Then he shouts at me and waves his arms and takes them all and puts them back.
We have never gotten rid of books (except after the first move and the great flood). But we did recently come into the possession of four huge new glorious bookshelves. And this house is enormous. So we should be fine.
*The blank space was there because the books that normally live there are stacked in a huge pile on the floor–a pile that children keep trying to ‘clean up’ which means that they walk off with them and put them in hidden corners and then I’m left wandering around in a frantic haze, trying to lay my hand on what I knew was supposed to be ‘right there.’
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