A couple of months ago I realized that a significant portion of my personality was still packed into twelve boxes in our garage, two-and-a-half years after we’d moved in: my books. When we were deciding on how to furnish our condo Jack got all reasonable about using good taste. “We’ll be out of here in two years anyway,” said 2005-Jack, his crystal ball having sadly misinformed him about the variable-rate mortgage trench we were about to fall into. “Let’s just keep the place simple and neutral, it will be easier to sell that way. You can get all Willy Wonka when we buy a house.” It’s true, my craving for interior furnishing that crept beyond the boundaries of beige officially made me into some sort of color-mad Oompa-Loompa-fetishist.
Fine, I said. Neutrals, I can deal, it’s not forever, someday I’ll have my dream home (human-skin lampshades, chandeliers in all the closets, you know the drill).
“Where are we going to put the bookshelves?” 2005-me asked naively. The bookshelves that had lined the hallway in our previous apartment, those Ikea-brand collectors of dust, tchotchkes, and other life-threatening organisms.
Jack swung down the mighty hammer of cleanliness (knowing that I’m far too distractable for actual housework), and our buckling black bookshelves were banished to the garage.
Then, twenty-nine months later I woke up and said to no one in particular, “As someone who spent most of her working life in libraries, publishing, and bookstores, this has been an interesting experiment, living book-free, but you know what? It turns out that not everything I need to look up in the course of my day is on the Internet. No one has yet posted the collected poems of George Starbuck for me to look for that one haiku about driving a Volkswagen with shot bearings through Iowa. I need my books back.”
Lo and behold, Jack heard me. So last weekend he rearranged his music stuff in the office and helped me trundle two bookcases and twelve boxes of books up the stairs. I dusted, unpacked, and shelved for two days. Then I sat down on the floor with Jackson and together we looked through books I’d forgotten I owned, like photographs by Sally Mann and Nick Waplington, and the illustrations of Lisbeth Zwerger. (I put the Tom of Finland back into storage because there’s no good way to explain that just yet.)
Haiku
Iowa crickets!
I thought the VW
bearing was going.
There is no chore I love more than unpacking books. Actually, there’s no other chore I love. Except pushing dust around, which is, unfortunately, not only not a chore, but only highlights how dusty everything really is.
Hooray, haiku! That’s my NaBlo theme at sugacookie. You make me happy.
Yay! I got a few choice words directed my way too when we moved into our mortgage trap and I persuaded LK I couldn’t part with my boxloads of books. I’ve only just painted a couple of previously neutral walls as well, finally realising that the next occupants might not be the sellers we were hoping for, and more likely the foreclosers!!
Inspiring! I need to pull out my boxes of books, which I’ve left in boxes because “I won’t stay here very long either.”
I am so happy for you! I know completely how you feel, finally, after >3 years here I have started pulling things from storage that *have* to have access to, for whatever reason.
But, alas, I miss the daily shoe pic.
I finally painted my bedroom, after 6 years. It’s never looked better.
Jules
House of Jules
I’m a fan of the Willy Wonka style of decorating. Yay books!
unpacking books is so pleasurable.
I can’t fathom how you were able to do without your collection- this fall, when we moved into a teeny-tiny studio, there was no place to put our giant bookcase and library. So we moved appliances over and put it in the kitchen, partially blocking the only outlets, because I knew we’d go nuts without it.
Lovely.
It must be so wondeful to have them back. My books are in various boxes in various parents’ basements. I miss them.
My best friend is building a house and is making the ‘dining room’ her library. (Much to her mother’s dismay..) So jealous.
Hooray for books!
Pish posh – minimalism is overrated. Stack them around the house until they’re ready to topple. Decide what to read next based on what falls on you first.
I have lugged our collection of books from Canada, to England, to Canada, to England and now to New Zealand. They are continually packed and unpacked, but always make the new house a home.
Expensive habit though. Feather collecting would have been better.
I’m impressed! I’ve been a huge fan of Sally Mann for years! I think she is a a fabulous photographer! Glad you have your books back!
Hooray for books! They line the wall in our spare bedroom and I am very impressed that you’ve waited this long to un-bury them. I love an addictive blog but nothing compares to the gentle touch of linen and paper! Congrats on the unpack.
I can imagine opening a lot of boxes to find that haiku. So excellent.
We’re in the middle of a home renovation, and I keep countering my husband’s suggestions for storage cabinets with “no, we need more bookshelves”. I have at least 8 boxes in my basement right now. This post made me smile.
This post reminds me of this quote by Anna Quindlen:
“I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”
Amen, sister.
Mark would be ecstatic if every wall in the house were bookshelves. I am happy for you. Jack, in addition to be hot, it also awesome.
Ahhhh…a wall of books is a soothing sight to behold. We’re moving in the opposite direction to you guys. Sadly I will be dismantling my book collection for the dreaded pre-move “declutter” in the coming months.
Thank you for posting that poem, because I would have had to come and bug you for it if you hadn’t. I used to drive a 1959 Vw pretty regularly, so I hae kind of a sentimental spot for the strange noises those little cars can generate.
Amyhow, your library isn’t nearly as shocking as the one my fiance and I have amassed. Basically the room which would otherwise be a dining room is a library, lined all around with mismatching bookshelves (some of which are way worse than yours aesthetically).
1. There may never be a good way to explain Tom of Finland. And maybe Jackson will understand it on his own. I mean, he is already married to that other farmer, right?
2. You can come Willy Wonka-ize my house anytime.
3. Jack is sweet to enable you in this way.
4. (God, there are 4?) The weirdest thing about reading this post is that my younger daughter was just walking around the house singing the Oompa Loompa song right before I clicked on Firefox! How weird is that? Could she be channeling you?
Lucky you. My books are still packed in boxes, waiting in my basement for my husband to build bookshelves.
That is a highly respectable, and quite beautiful, book collection and I can’t believe you went without it for two years. No, seriously. Sometimes I just walk over to my bookshelf (the only one I can fit in my apartment) and look at it for an hour.
Also, sorry about being a lurker. I’ve been reading your blog for about a year now, but never commented. I hate it when people lurk on my blog (all two of them), so I’m trying not to do it to anyone else. Anti-Hypocrisy and all that.
Cheers!
http://narfna.livejournal.com
I moved over three years ago, and still have unpacked boxes. I recently re-did the shelves to where they were marginally organized, but it’s still not anywhere near looking “company ready.”
Reunited with your books — I know the feeling. Thanks for the Haiku.
It sounds like you and I have the same taste in interior decoration. And books–I think I recognize one of those spines. It’s the thick two-thirds turquoise, one-third black one sitting on the second shelf of the bookcase to the left. Is that a history of the H.M.S. Bounty mutiny?
Ahhh, satisfaction.
Now if only something could be done about that variable rate mortgage.
No kidding.
Rebecca, that turquoise and black book is actually a fancy variorum edition of the poetry of W.B. Yeats that was a graduation gift from a boy in my senior poetry seminar who had a crush on me.
I’ve got 4 bookcases overflowing and a couple of cabinets full – and I’m trying to figure out where I can put another.
A home without books isn’t a home, is it? I’m sure I didn’t make that up, but I don’t know who did.
Lizbeth Zwerger! My Amazon wishlist has just increased by one book – thanks, I love her!
Yeats…Captain Bligh. What say we split the difference and call it Fear of Flying?
Bookshelves are so relaxing to me they act as a laxative. I thought you should know this.
I couldn’t live without my crammed-full bookcases. I hardly ever reread the books on them, but just having them nearby makes me happy.
I want to cry. We moved into this house more than three years ago and my books are still in boxes in the cellar. Because there’s a grand plan to do built-in bookcases in one room…a grand plan that keeps getting derailed by other more important things. Argh.
i love how you phrased that. a significant portion of your personality. nice one!
I am so excited for you! Along with our human-skin lampshades, we are turning the dining room of our new house into a library. Now all we need is money for custom bookshelves. But it will be incredible, someday. (For now, half of my books are in the basement.)
Sigh, most of my books are in boxes, lined up in the beige-walled closets, dreaming of the day when I can go hog-wild and line the shelves of a personal home library with them. I just visited the boxes yesterday, as a matter of fact. Sigh.