On books and bookshelves

I've been moving my books to new bookshelves, in a new location.

Shouldn't make much difference. Shouldn't be a big deal. Still the same books, right?

But it is making a BIG difference. And I am discovering it is more of a process that a simple relocation of objects.

First, there is the removing them from the old shelves. I can't just take them off and stick them into boxes. I need to look at each one...maybe read a line or two. Remember where I got it, or who gave it to me, or what I thought about the book.

Then there is a keep or release decision to make. I have a big bag of books ready to meet new readers sometime soon. Books I read, and liked, but which seem ready to move on.

There are the books that must remain accessible and with me until the last minute. They cannot occupy a new home until I do. These books sit now, on dusty shelves with only the odd bits of paper or small treasures for company. These are the books I would take with me, if I was forced to travel light.

I am moving the books a few reusable shopping bags at a time. Boxes are too heavy and awkward for the stairs I must go down to get to my car. I find that I pick and choose as I fill the bags, as though there needs to be a relationship between the books in each.

And then when the books arrive at their new home (my soon-to-be new home), they must be placed on shelves. Another moment to look at each.

I am trying not to arrange them yet, except where size dictates a certain shelf. Big decorating books on the bottom. Paperbacks just fit into that narrow shelf.

I will arrange them on a rainy day when they have all been moved. For now, Judaica rubs elbows with physics, and mysteries sit side-by-side with a graphic novel and a book on raising ethical children.

The first two bookcases are full now. These tall black shelves stand a full foot or so higher than my old battle-scarred Bauder bookcases purchased years ago and in another state. The new shelves make the books look different. The colors of the bindings are more noticeable. The patterns they make fascinate me. I look at them, remember the travels some of these books have made, from one side of the country to the other and back again, and realize that there is almost as much to read on the outside of these books as in their pages.

I haven't moved my clothes yet. Or my furniture or my dishes or the toys. My antiques and my scrapbooking supplies still occupy their old spaces.

The books are the first to make the journey and stake out my place in a new home. And that precious few that remain on old shelves will be the last to go with me as I turn the key for the last time on my old space. Books as bookends to a new life...

The price of change

Since I've returned to my blog, I've been considering changing the back ground images. It's a simple thing to do...replace a line of code or two, and wallah, a new look. I could use different photos, or some of my art work.

But even with a minor change like this, there is a price. A certain loss of comfort, of familiarity. No, it's not anything earth shattering -- I am not paralyzed with fear. But there is a tinge of mourning when we let go of the familiar, whether it's a favourite pair of shoes or an outgrown bed...or a blog background. Admit it..you have held on to a worn out, but beloved shirt or pair of shoes or some other item even when a perfectly acceptable replacement (read, new) was readily available.

If we know that these little changes can affect us, why do we pretend that major changes are "no big deal?" Whether the change is positive like a new job or a graduation, or sad like the end of a loving relationship, we as a society want people to "get over it" or "get on with it" with lightening speed.

To look back wistfully is seen as a sign of weakness. The most famous story of this bias against taking one last look is Lot's wife. We all know the story..as the family was fleeing the evil of the city, she takes one last glance back at the place that was her home, and is turned to a pillar of salt. The Rabbis have explained her punishment in a variety of ways, from retribution for her past misdeeds to a result of her lack of complete faith in G-d's order to flee.

But there is another possible interpretation for her look backwards. Perhaps within that city were some good memories. Perhaps the birth of her children or their first tottering steps. A home she had cared for. Memories of her wedding day. So even as her feet carried her forward into the new, and hopefully better, she needed to take one last look. The pillar of salt? Instead of description of a punishment, maybe it was simply a way to vividly describe the tears that fall when we leave something behind for something new. For a moment, as we pause between the old and the new, we are literally frozen into our tears.

According to the Torah, she did not continue on her journey forward but remained as that salty pillar. So perhaps the lesson has two parts. One, that the act of looking back as we move on in life may, for a moment freeze our progress. The problem comes when we stay there, looking backwards, forgetting the journey.

So what does this all have to do with changing my blog background? The images on the screen as of today are a place I left behind three years plus ago. I think it's time stop looking back...time to face forward and move on.