Just this last weekend, we moved from a house into a 16X72 trailer home. This made it necessary to go through all our storage, decide what to keep and what to get rid of, and what to put back into storage. As I opened the boxes and sifted through my bounteous belongings, it was like opening the door to find a long-lost friend standing on the front porch.
You see, I’ve never had room to display all of my books. It’s not that I have a whole ton of them; it’s just that I’ve always lived in small houses. I’ve had to pick and choose which books to have out when, and probably three-quarters of my collection live in cardboard boxes, gasping for air through the little slits and anxiously awaiting the day when it’s their turn to sit up proudly on their spines on my bookshelf.
Books like “Anne of Ingleside” greeted me as I pulled back the flaps. My “Work and the Glory” collection, Mary Higgins Clark, doctrinal nonfiction, fairy tales – books from all walks of life, different genres and authors, representations of my eclectic reading style, lurking and longing, sitting in the back of the storage room.
I hated to tell them that I couldn’t keep them all out. Again, I have to pick and choose. Rotation is such an unfair thing – you think you’ll put away ten books and get out ten more, but it’s impossible not to play favorites and be perfectly impartial. I handed tissues all around to stop the flow of tears, but it had to be done anyway – most of the books went back in the box, with the few lucky ones waving goodbye from the shelf. It was an emotional moment, one that I dread having to repeat, and yet I know I will someday, when it comes time to switch the books out again. Once again, some will feel neglected and some will feel privileged, and as always, looking through them will be like greeting long-lost friends.