Books (Extreme Obsession)
Lying on my bed I stare up at the ceiling. The early morning light, almost gray, creeps around the white sheet I have hung over the expanse of window. I will order the drapes for the windows next week, or was that last week? I turn to my side and see the books towering in neat stacks by color and genre. I often start these projects at 11pm after dinner and walk around the park. Dust may have covered the bookshelves overnight so I will have to get a new dusting towel and rewipe those shelves. Last time I arranged the books, I had one cream colored book amongst all the white ones. It was even a book on organizing closets which clearly did not go with my set of Cooking in France cookbooks. The block letter against the white spines looked like it matched but anyone who studied my book cases would see it was in the wrong category. What can I do with only one book on organizing. I’ll make a note to get several other books like how to organize your fridge and how to organize your email.
I had the fiction with various blue spines next to the ones with shades of green. But Razor’s Edge with the steel blue spine just didn’t fit anywhere. I had stopped there when I could barely keep my eyes open. The dozen yellow spines made a perfect stack because they were all mystery novels. The two black stacks of fiction and the dark gray psychology manuals and textbooks towered just past the yellow stack. The others were stuffed into baskets under my bed. I could not organize every book because the genres and spines were two various so I had pushed them under my bed the last time I had organized my shelves (possibly last week). I figure the words in those books will permeate the room and I’ll suddenly be able to speak in languages I do not know yet.
Work will call about 7 am so I have to make the most progress possible so that I can get there. Otherwise I never find my keys, my jacket, the front door, the elevator and the path to the L. My barefeet glide across the floor to the kitchen space and I slowly pour a glass of pear juice and get a bowl of Kashi to settle in. I breath deeply a few times and assume my spot on the floor between my bed and the book shelves. Dusting towel, dusting towel. I look and find them to my right. A bite of Kashi, a drink of juice, then I rise and wipe the top shelf left to right in long strokes. Kneeling I take another bite of Kashi and another drink. I can’t let my energy get low otherwise I cannot keep rising. Down each shelf I dust slowly in the same direction. I then place white books on the top shelf to expand the space. White is like heaven and clouds and space.
After the third shelf my alarm goes off. I must shower and prepare for my day of work. Then I can return to finish with the black books. I turn to head towards the bathroom, then remember there was probably one more black book under the bed. On hands and knees I reach under my oak platform bed and pull out the two baskets of books. They look so jumbled I want to cry. I bought these books carefully, deciding on each title after careful research. Some spines face up, others down, so that they are not ordered at all. I rifle through them then realize I can only find the book I’m thinking of if I put all of the spines facing up. I think at some point my phone rings but I need to get these books in order. These books cannot organize themselves. They may speak but they never move. Not without my hand firmly on them. It’s as if they might float. They seem to be bound in the baskets or tied to the shelves with invisible strings. I can manipulate these strings by setting each book at the front of the shelf and carefully sliding it back into place. “We musn’t damage spines by shoving them to the back. The outside edges of the pages crush if the book is not slid with great care.”
Halfway through placing the black books carefully in place, my phone rings. It is Ellen calling. “Sleepyhead” she says gently, “You know this is your wakeup call.”
“Yeah,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck, “I just got up. Slept in again. Sorry about that.”
“We can’t start this project without you. We’ll order tuna sandwiches for lunch again,” Ellen says lightly with no hint of distress in her voice.
“Ok, I’ll just slip on any dress and be right over,” I say, looking carefully through my closet for my black wraparound, the one with the red tag instead of the ones with the black or green tags. I hang up, put on my dress, then carefully draw on some black eyeliner in the bathroom mirror. I reach for my purse, then close my eyes, wondering if I even started my day. Outside my door I say hello to Mrs. Priskos getting her morning paper. Then I stride to the elevator, call for it, and wait tapping my finger against my palm. I should be to work in about 10 minutes if CTA is running on time.
