View from the Stacks

I've mentioned I spend my time at a used bookstore; not to say the store is used in that it was once owned by someone else, lovingly read and passed on, but the books most certainly have.

I have the particular honor of being able to come to a lovely book-insulated atmosphere with the option to lock the door and just BE.  The stacks, the alphabetized order, the categories, the silent voices whispering out of time from the shelves... for a select few, this is bliss. I handle, almost daily, a quantifiable representation of humanity encapsulated in paper, board, and ink. The words held in these pages, many worthy, many seemingly waste beyond a picture in time of how reality presents itself to different minds and how those minds choose to present themselves, tell what is and what has been since words began being recorded. 

I recognize that print does not mean truth, but the collection of the print is a truth in itself. It is our truth and our truths, the face given to history to reflect who we are, where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. 

The big picture is very hard to see when you are looking at only one small part of it. The benefit of a categorized bookstore, specifically a used bookstore that is respectful of aged books (which are actually historical thoughts or pictures in time), is that it is easier to see humanity as a whole. It is easier to put ideas into perspective or to find perspective on an aspect of what we call "Life" when a categorized collection is looking you in the face. Of course, books don't represent all of what is, they are only a physical form of aspects of the experiences of others, but the books tell so much, even beyond the words they hold (see bio).

This is a great excuse to be a book-hoarder. The best thing about being behind the curtain in a used bookstore is that you get an excuse to keep those books that you would just rather not let go into the dumpster or the recycler. I try to find them homes, at least those I dub worthy ("Who am I to play God of the Written Word?", I ask myself. The answer, "But someone has to do it"). There are too many that have to be marked down and demarcated and devalued because of a lack of demand or shelf-space. I don't feel so much a hoarder as I do a guard of knowledge. I haven't read nor can I read a measurable fraction of what is on our shelves, but I feel duty-bound to protect what passes our threshold.

It is good to find the place you belong, and I belong among the stacks.