As many of you already know Crow has left us for the great western frontier. He left us with a lot of empty space, a lot of his less treasured possessions, and a huge number of books. Not to mention some serious holes in the beloved roommate section of our lives. But this week and last we have been aiming to fill the physical holes left by his departure. That has meant turning his old room into a media room for entertaining nerdy guests (and also an insomnia room for when Raven can't sleep - ironically, I, as an owl, am not a night person).
As anyone who has ever shared space with a significant other can tell you, decorating a shared apartment or house can be a make or break experience for many relationships. What one partner may think is a lovely shade of green the other partner may think is a trashy throwback to the 70s and makes them physically sick to look at. And let's not even get started on artwork! Fortunately for Raven and me this particular area of discord has never been much of a concern.
Though we have slightly diverging tastes in some areas of decorating, we find ourselves in agreement more often than not. And when we don't agree usually one opinion is fairly weak and easily overlooked. For example, I have never put much artwork on my walls, but Raven loves to decorate wall space. I didn't have strong feelings about the issue and now that our apartment is decorated with tons of wall art, I have to say I have come around one hundred percent to Raven's way of thinking. So, Raven and I seemed to have weathered that relationship test relatively easily.
Today was another story. The mother of all relationship tests. At least as far as we were concerned. Joining and organizing our divergent libraries. Raven has Feelings on how a library should be organized and where books belong. I have (admittedly weaker) Feelings on the subject as well. I have fewer books than Raven, but most of them have been with me since middle or high school and I cherish them deeply. Fortunately we have few duplicates as literary taste is one area where our interests diverge a bit.
But organizing and categorizing our massive library was quite a trial in itself. And caused more than one minor disagreement and a very near existential crisis for one of us! But a couple hours later all our books are carefully divided into a few huge piles across our living room floor. The broad categories range from non-fiction to poetry to fantasy. There is a sizable romance collection (my influence and a definite divergent area) and a huge science fiction section (her influence and my great fortune as I am getting to the genre more now than I ever have before). There is also a reference section and a non-fiction section, piled so close they are almost indistinguishable. This is not an accident since their initial separation was the cause of the narrowly averted existential crisis mentioned earlier.
Soon we will have smaller, more numerous piles of subgenres like steampunk, literary reference, distopian YA, anime, and comic fantasy. Out of the chaos will come order. And out of strife (or more put more accurately, academic discourse and bargaining) Raven and my relationship remains intact. Another test passed, another milestone cleared. Hopefully shelving doesn't prove to be our undoing...
*Title adapted from Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman. "Marrying Libraries" is the title of the first of her essays in the book and is one of my favorite essays of all time. Thank you to Crow for introducing me to this marvelous book (and author). If you love books and haven't read Ex Libris, you ought.
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