I have been opening the most important boxes...

How do I describe what it feels like to reunite with my book collection after 1 1/2 years?  

Thrilling.  Emotional. Way way more than I can possibly handle in one day.  The above box is part of my poetry collection, which is the only genre that is color-coded.  In the past 1 1/2 years I have reformulated my color-coding system so there will be a lot of happy work ahead.  

Since the beginning of October I have cleaned so many cabinets and shelves that I am now dreaming about it.  It's become the 'ordinary' part of my dreams that is always interrupted by the unusual. For instance, I will be up on a ladder cleaning shelves and I'll look out the window and there will be a dragon wearing a purple bikini walking her dog.  

Or I will be cleaning my shelves and cabinets but the building I'm in is my workplace at the library. Occasionally a patron will ask me to come down and help.  Apparently my sleep self is like, so you're officially a cleaner of cabinets and shelves.  Ok, I can make that your default setting.  

Cleaning the shelves that house my books are worth all the crazy dreams.  After touching and smelling all the books that make me who I am, all the books that say so much about my family and life, books that have cleared the paths that make up the veins of my very soul, I feel like I'm fully alive again.

Now I just need to find the rest of my books...  Buy more of course.  And every time I walk by the shelves, patiently listen to where the books want to sit and who they want to sit next to.  

For instance, yesterday I thought my Fancy Nancy books wanted to stick together.  Turns out it's a little too much glitter and pink.  Do I keep them with the other kid's books or should I do something radical and put them with my books on grieving and death?  Who knows?  My Fancy Nancy books may become the globetrotters of my collection, spreading their fancy words and serendipity to all those books who need it.

No matter what, once I've cleaned all the shelves and cabinets of all the land, I will happily spend my days shuffling my books around.  I will never be able to take them all the places they've taken me, but I can help them navigate the mighty living room and perhaps take them to new heights.  But only if I decide to have any shelves upstairs.  I may decide I don't want to clean them.