Organizing Principle

This weekend, my husband got the organizing bug, a rare occurrence at our house. He wanted to go through some of our books.


Image courtesy of vorakorn
at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I resisted. I veer away from organizing. I don’t like having to make all those decisions. And have you ever noticed that when you, say, decide to clean out a closet, things get a whole lot worse – with everything pulled out, the dust flying – before they get better? … IF they get better … It’s right about then that I am tempted to stop.

Well, we did go through the books and my husband Googled up a used-book store nearby to bring them to.

That place was amazing. It was a funky shop, in an old building, several rooms, every single one of them filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves, containing thousands upon thousands of books. There were shelves in the bathroom. There were books stacked around a kitchen sink in one of the rooms.

Everything was in perfect order. All books were categorized and alphabetized and neatly labeled. There wasn’t a speck of dust. Some books were intricately stacked. Others were put on particularly prominent display. You could see, because there was order, that the store had some really interesting books. There were cool design touches: some really neat-looking old couches and stuffed chairs, pieces of art, funny old signs.

This was the work – an amazing amount of work – of a mind that loved order. That mind belonged, I assume, to the rumpled man behind the counter, who sat quietly reading.

I wanted to ask him if he could come to our house and whip it into shape.

Perhaps we are a lost cause, though. We brought some of his books home with us.