Today I am Writing: On Books, Everywhere

Recently my friend arrived back in the country and, walking through my house, said, "There are so many more books!"

She seemed pleased by this.
(Her exclamation of "I love it!" gave her away.)

And she is right. I look around my house and notice that practically every surface that could hold a book does hold a book. There are books on the shelves of the bookshelves as well as along the top. There are books under the plants by the front door and there are books stacked on the radiator in the kitchen. There are books on the tiny table I bought to hold my herbs and there are books on the stools that sit next to the chairs. Sometimes books even get left out on the porch, next to all the bug-away supplies. Upstairs there's more, on the desk, on the night stand, in the basket on the floor. During the day when I'm working, the bed is strewn with them too. Stacks and not-quite-so-tidy. There are books. Everywhere. On many different topics.

There's the book on systems thinking, and the book on the nature of shame. There's the book on making a home and the book on what it looks like to think about "respect." There's the book on thinking musically across cultures and the book on growing up black in white America. There's the book of poetry and the biography of the poet. There's the book on finding God in everyday things and the book on finding Him in the dark. There are many more than these, on the subject of many more things.

I take a mid-day location break and I take two of them with me. I'm only going to be at the cafe for an hour or so, but one book does not suffice. I need them to talk to each other. I need them to fill each other in. Neither is complete, and neither one is entirely me. But both have things to offer.

Sure enough, I read, "We never say exactly what we mean when we write."* And I think that this is why I collect these voices, lining my house with words. We never can say it all enough exactly, but still, I want to find it.

I want to find what we mean.

*The Art of Teaching Music, Estelle R. Jorgensen, p. 11