If you’re ever over at our house, you may notice that we keep our bedroom door shut. I love the room and the things in it, but it also tends to be Laundry Central, and that’s sort of embarrassing. A book I read during my first year of marriage said our bedroom should be the most beautiful place in our home—a sanctuary and symbol of our marriage and thus the place that gets the most loving care. Well, I’ve failed at that. It’s a great idea, but—well, this post isn’t about housekeeping.
If the door is ever open, it’s possible I’ve managed to tame the mess on my dresser and deal with the laundry (or hide it in the closet.) But I probably haven’t even noticed my nightstand. It rarely crosses my mind that it should look any different than it does. Come to think of it, that may explain why the area around each child’s bed looks the way it does. Because my nightstand holds most of the books I am currently reading, as well as a hefty line-up of the things I want to read. It contains many of my hopes and dreams as a reader and as a person, it reveals some of what I love, what I want to learn, what I want to emulate, what I want to absorb.
So here’s what is in that pile:
Four issues of Poets & Writers
A Bible
Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach
A Fine White Dust, Cynthia Rylant
Rules for the Dance, Mary Oliver
Teacher Man, Frank McCourt (actually finished this, but never re-shelved it)
Three issues of Books & Culture
Summer issue of The Classical Teacher, Memoria Press
A stack of letters and copies of my grandma’s sketches that I brought home from Lincoln last spring and don’t want to lose
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
Shadow Baby, Alison McGhee
Into Thin Air, John Krakauer
Nathan Coulter, Wendell Berry
The Habit of Being, Flannery O’Connor
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography, ed. William Zinsser
Then there’s what used to be on the floor under the nightstand, but has been moved by my ever-patient husband to the top of a CD tower in the hallway:
The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Paul Elie
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Mabinogion, trans. Charlotte Guest
Finally, we mustn’t forget the headboard (it’s flat and makes a lovely shelf):
Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton
Memories of Sun: Stories of Africa and America, ed. Jane Kurtz
The Burning of Los Angeles: Poems, Samuel Maio
Remember, this post is not about housekeeping!
