I want to begin this first post in the farm house by writing about the doe and two fawns Meander and I came within 50 feet on our walk this morning. How the mother looked at us and stared. How the fawns froze. How Meander and the deer bolted when the mother snorted. It was beautiful.
This Cabbage Patch baby made the ultimate sacrifice to save Thomas Merton's works.
I want to write about the way the fog hangs on the mountains here like it’s the haphazard lace on a second-hand wedding dress, gorgeous and thin.
Today, though, is Sunday, and on Sundays, I write about books. Today, I will be unpacking the rest of mine – if only to save them from puppy teeth. I have three tall bookshelves that my father built, all with shelves at different heights, so putting the books out is a bit like trying to shove 7 of your friends who play professional volleyball in your fiat. It’s a puzzle I love every time.
One shelf, upstairs by my bed where I will be most likely to read them, I’ll put my “religious” books (I use that term for wont of a better one.) Thomas Merton and Anne Lamott and Kathleen Norris. Down here in my office, I have my writing books and my set of Best American Essays (I’m missing years 1989, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2004, and 2011, if anyone is looking to make space). Then, in the living room, I”ll put out fiction and the gorgeous old books – a miscellany from Robert Louis Stevenson to Rudyard Kipling – that my mom and I collected together over the years.
It’s a perfect way to spend a rainy day, sorting, remembering, reading snippets. And I should be off to it, the Cabbage Patch sacrifice will only entertain the puppy for so long.
What’s in your book collection? How do you organize it?