In this household books are sacred.

Both Cooper and I are inhalers of print. Books are friends and teachers and they mark the cycles and seasons of our lives. To say that we have many of them is an understatement.

In readying our house for sale we have taken many trips to the second hand book store. We get a mere pittance for them, but at least we know they will have another life. Many of our books have gone to the library at Richfield UMC. We have thinned and it is not a task for the faint of heart but we did it.

So when I came home yesterday to stacks and stacks of books on the floor I was flummoxed. We had a stager come in to ready our home for photo taking tomorrow.

She had assassinated our bookshelves!

I asked her how it was she determined which one or two survived to grace each shelf.

Her answer? She chose the ones that were prettiest and looked the best.

I knew it was time for me to leave.

So I did.

Wow. All those words, all that beauty, all the hours of grace shared were summarily consigned to boxes until we unpack them in Rochester.

And so it is. We are being staged. I recognize my house, but it feels that I have moved into the time of transition when assumed relationship with space and surroundings is no more.

There is gift in this. I notice the lovely ways the leaded glass in the dining room creates prisms. I thank the trees in my back yard for their cardinal-bearing ways. I wonder at the foolishness of waiting so long to do so much good work in order to pretty up our home.

I can forgive the stager. She wants our house to speak welcome.

So I’ll box the books and imagine that they will find welcome and a place to be.

Stagers bring lessons.

Don’t they?