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My favorite piece of furniture in our teeny apartment is our bookshelf. I love the way it looks and how useful it is. But mostly I love how much it contains. Since college and even more since marriage Andrew and I have both had to condense in almost every area of our lives. And since books are heavy, they were the first things to go. So the books we have on our bookshelf are ones that we pulled from the pile and labeled “worth it.” That is worth it to us to keep. Worth it to us to lug around forever. We have journals and notebooks, scriptures and church books, family history, even textbooks from classes we enjoyed. Our bookshelf holds our boxes of letters and keepsakes, books about pioneers, Hawaii and Paraguay, our favorite stories, pictures and scrapbooks. Books of hobbies, mementos from Andrew’s mission, cookbooks, Avonlea videos. 6 shelves of books and things. Books we’ve read, books we want to read, books we meant to read. Some of which we bought together and many from before we even knew each other.
I love that bookshelf because it’s a physical sign of our lives coming together and of us being enriched by each other. I’ve learned about his interests and the things that are worth it to him to lug around. And he’s learned about the things that are worth it to me.
I’m sure that over the next few years we may have to condense more. And that will be tough. But it will also make room for things we keep finding that we want to hold on to. Someday our bookshelf will probably hold parenting books right next to Andrew’s school books. And that one “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” Years after that there will be books about how to deal with teenagers, and even more years later there may be books about back pains and arthritis. My college scrapbooks will make room for our kid’s scrapbooks, and our philosophy books will scoot over for Dr. Seuss and The Bernstein Bears. I love our jam packed bookshelf now, I can’t imagine how much love I’ll have for it when we can’t squeeze anymore in between the cracks.
I’m very happy to have inherited this book-loving gene from my parents and grandparents. I’m excited to see our collection grow over time.
2 comments:
We have a packed book shelf to! Don't you just love it? Its funny cuz even though I have my nook now, there is just something about a physical book that you can't replace. Our Wizard of Oz books and Work and the Glory set are in the worth in section, along with Sherlock and classics like Le Mis. Right next to the Kaiser book and Lester's scary medical ones haha.
sheesh guys wish youd pass that gene over here i cant remember if ray even knows how to read anything but school books. LAME. that's it i'm going to the church book store right now.
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