Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Bookseller's Holiday


You've heard of a busman's holiday? Well, yesterday was a bookseller's holiday -- a rare and accidental treat brought on by the delivery of the new dining room chairs. It's important to know that very few things will deter me from my work, as I live, breathe, eat and sleep bookselling. When I'm not listing books, buying books, communicating with customers, wrapping books, or shipping books, I'm thinking about all of the above. I even dream about it, though that's most definitely NOT a good thing. It's always the same recurrent dream in which I miss an order and fail to ship. Never in real life has this happened, but in the dream I am always supplied with a name and the title of an actual book I own, so of course as soon as my feet hit the floor I scramble to the office and search frantically for this errant order, heart pounding like a jackhammer. Yes, I'm neurotic, no question, but that's another story.

The point here is that yesterday I declared a holiday and devoted myself entirely to the transformation of the dining room. Once those gorgeous brown leather chairs turned up everything suddenly seemed old and tired. So off to the paint store for a new color -- Laura Ashley, Taupe #4 --and a fresh new coat of white to spruce up the considerable trim. A rearrangement of the art, the addition of a tall urn with "sticks" -- some sort of skinny, dry, tall, natural things that are graphically fantastic despite my inability to describe them and -- voila! -- transformation. All I need now are some wall words, but I have already placed at order with WiseDecor.com for 4" high lettering in burgundy reading "Art is not the bread, but the wine of life." These will grace the area above the almost full wall mirror trimmed in white wood.

There is something so deeply satisfying about the creation of beauty. Even this morning I stood at the doorway to take it all in as the morning light began to filter through the blinds. But now that I have had my moment of design creativity it's time for creativity of a different sort. "Back to the books," as we used to say in college. Only at this stage in my life it's not with resignation, but a grateful heart.














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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Your new dining room sounds wonderful! Pictures perhaps?

Unknown said...

The chairs are gorgeous! And congrats on mastering pictures!