I spent this afternoon doing my first serious shelving back at the big store. This is something I’ve been waiting for with an anticipation so sharp my stomach aches a little.
We’ve had so many sweet offers of help for shelving the books (and thank you all, we appreciate it so much), but I admit, I’ve wanted to save these first few days of shelving for myself. Come back in a week, and I’m sure I’ll be exhausted and crying for help, but right now I’m holding it to myself like a greedy child… a child who made up her own card catalog system to organize the books in her bedroom when she was 11.
So today, I went up to the second floor by myself, opened all the windows to 
the gorgeous sunny day, blasted the soundtrack to Across the Universe, sang along… and shelved my books.
I knew that I would love getting lost in this process. There is something so soothing about applying an organization to these thousands of bits. Something so satisfying about laying hands on each book that is here today because I ordered it. As each book passes through my hands, I know that there is someone waiting for it, someone for whom this book will be exactly what they need.
Each of these books has such a history to it… a hundred gateways it passed to get to this place… author, illustrator, agent, publisher, rep, buyer; each of us brought it to this place for a reason. But more than history, each of these books holds potential. They are waiting. Waiting for the next set of hands to pick them up. And these shelves are the crossroads.
The joy that I hadn’t anticipated was seeing the return of favorites that just couldn’t fit at the temporary store. All those personal loves that don’t sell enough to justify carrying in a tiny space. As I picked each one up from the box, there was the inevitable slam of memory as I relived the first time I read it, the time that I fell in love with it, the time I sold it to someone who needed it, or the time a customer returned to rave about it. And there was the thrill that it’s back in my store where it belongs.
So welcome home, Solla Sollew. Welcome home, Chocolate War. Welcome home, Little Red Lighthouse. Welcome home, Fox in Sox. Welcome home, Lizzie Bright. Welcome home, Maggie Quinn. Welcome home, Ollie and Gossie and Gertie. Welcome home, Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life. Welcome home.
