Thoughts to Ponder, 2/27/19
Patricia Feager
"With all their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of the holiday houses to find something to read. I've come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun." --- JK Rowling
Have Shelves Been Put On The Shelf?
There are many lessons to learn about histories past and present. For example, these shelves that were built inside the DeGolyer Tea Room at the Dallas Arboretum were an inspiration for this blog post. As often happens when one sits quietly and listens, thoughts and other people's words cloud the room. Something many real estate agents and stagers suggest to sellers in preparation to list their home for sale are to take things off their shelves or minimize to a number of three. Do people really see collections or clutter? Furthermore, are buyers and guests intrigued or turned-off? That's all a matter of perspective. In my opinion, it is no different than seeing the glass half empty or half full when it comes to collections and memories from works of art.
As I looked around the dining room at the DeGolya Tea Room, many customers were staring at their iPad; perhaps reading e-books while dining or waiting for their food? I appeared to be the only one who carried a proper book. At the table kitty-corner from where I sat, two older women, storytellers, shared historical accounts of old friends of theirs who survived the Nazi Concentration Camps. Yes! It is captivating and educational to eavesdrop! History is always in the making and repeated. And as far as the wait staff went, they seemed to know everything on the menu and how things were prepared. It was as if, they were walking, talking, living, cookbooks helping customers decide what to order. Yet in between my observations, there, on the wall across from where I sat were the silent books, written, edited, and published by authors that nobody else seemed to notice, except me! Which leads me to beg the question.
Have shelves been shelved, put aside, laid to rest as obsolete because a collection is now cluttering or is clutter really a collection of books and material things that many people collected or cherished over the years or are they simply dust collectors, hoping somebody will notice? As for me, I'll take a bookshelf and proudly display my clutter and collections any day. It really is all a matter of perspective.
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