Inhabit

Ally (u.s.a.)

[reflection]

When I am writing at my best, I am like a librarian pushing a cart along the stacks, reshelving books effortlessly with instinctive knowledge of where each call number can be found on the shelves, a skill honed from years of practice.

When I’m writing at my best, my ideas—and the words that give them form—are like those books that are put in exactly the right place. And thereby easily retrievable. Everything in its place, alongside the right neighbors, findable. And I’m the librarian with the cart and the quick hand and eye, practically throwing books into their vacant spots in the stacks.

When I get stuck with my writing, I can go to another shelf, or section of the library, and reshelve there, leaving the errant book to be reshelved later.

The shadow side of my metaphor is that I can’t reach the high shelves without a stool. Sometimes the call numbers are illegible. Sometimes I make mistakes and mis-shelve a book. Sometimes I don’t return to the errant book abandoned on the cart. (But then again, perhaps not all books—ideas—are meant for the stacks… maybe they belong elsewhere. In a reader’s hands for example.)

I love it when I shelve as fast as the cart can roll!