Saturday, July 4, 2009

Walk Through Time

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Walk through time
via the book shelves...

When I was looking
at the book shelf images
that I posted
in the slow walking story
I started to think
about how each of my bookshelves
tells a story
through time...


through passages
passions
phases
and
periods

through stages
studies
interests
and self expression









this shelf
belongs to the house design phase
where house styles from
different countries and
continents were explored








these novels,
some old some new,
have provided me
with leisure and recreation-
but unlike most novels
that I share with friends
and then pass on to the library
I am not ready
to part with this group
quite yet








the subscription shelf
is crowded with gourmet traveller
for when I am feeling passionate about cooking
or travelling
and house design monthlies
to keep me abreast of contemporary design









and high above the magazine shelves,
the deceptively plain looking folders
are repositories
of the most valuable treasures
collections of works:
written, drawn and made by my four kids








and then we arrive
at the self development stage
which is really ongoing...








but there was a time
when it seemed
to devour all my spare time...








the current reads
get jammed into the spaces









while memories of my lifetime
are collected
and housed in the many albums
found down here









and then we find a shelf
dedicated to creativity
of the art and collage variety









near the section
of texts
required to build
a skill base
for practicing counselling








At this shelf
I will admit
to having a journal fetish
these still blank
but one day will progress








to the shelf dedicated to
filled journals
and collections








adjacent to
the gift card corner








the ideas group -
notes and pics
sketches and words
colours and torn articles
that may one day inspire me








and this colourful collection
contains the many postcards
that I have created
during the postcard passion period...







and what of these
large folders...








ah...
the hazy moon posts I print
to pass on to my parents
to update them of my foibles
and for me to mull over again...








and look here
hiding behind the folders
a book I am currently reading
and
how absolutely appropriate...

and the subject matter
for a future story...





*



36 comments:

  1. books allow me to explore many worlds that i've never imagine existed. they give me all sort of feelings when i'm reading them... feels like i'm in the book living the journey myself.

    now, i pass some of my books to my students...wishing to share theejoy of reading with them.

    thanks for sharing our thoughts, Delwyn.

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  2. I really enjoyed wondering through your book shelves...came across some of my favorites...I enjoy sudoku puzzles also...and laughed at your similar stack of blank journals and boxed cards...same here...and my idea journal section is just one journal but I do have one.
    May I ask for just a brief explanation of how you go about printing your blog posts...no great detail needed...Thank you!

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  3. Hello there little moonshin

    Books are the doorways to other places, times, ideas, and into other lives developing in us understanding,insight and the ability to feel empathy.

    What we experience is a tiny fragment of life and books broaden that window.

    Good on you for sharing your books. I like to think of giving books away as a form of community service.

    Happy days

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  4. Hi Wanda

    I love boxed cards and make a point of collecting them from my travels. I also like to make my own.

    Now to print you block is very simple.

    Does it get emailed to you?
    If not choose that setting...

    Then copy and paste into word - voila...

    I usually adjust the layout to save paper and fix up any variations... It was my husband's idea originally, but does use a lot of ink...however my mum, in NZ, told me she received an update today and just loves them...

    Happy days

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  5. Wanda -PS
    goodness me I am going off my block!!

    that should read:

    print your blog.

    where was my mind? wood block printing I wonder...

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  6. hi delwyn, i love crammed bookshelves! i always have. i tell my students "everything begins with reading and work and play". when i lived with my parents they took me to get a library card when i was old enough there was a rule - six books a week. there were many times i resented that rule but i am deeply grateful now, as i know that much of who i am and what i have and what my children will be and have is connected to that simple rule.
    i had to laugh when i read you too have a journal fetish and that you have ideas journals .... me too! i think it connects so strongly to blogging, collecting information and your own ideas and then cutting and pasting things that strike you as cool or worthy. have a peaceful day. steven

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  7. Wow, I borrow more than buy! And that's a lovely idea, printing out your posts for your parents.

    Wild Swans has been on my list to read for ages; will order it soon.

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  8. HI Alaine

    I had a Chinese period where I read every thing I could find - but must have overdone it as could not 'til recently read more.
    Wild Swans is excellent and also Mao's Last Dancer about the now Australian Chinese dancer's life as a young dancer in the period of Mao's wife's control over Chinese culture.
    Then for American Chinese there is Amy Tan - especially the Joy Luck Club - which gave me the impetus to establish a women's group.

    I have just read Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout, a bit hard going but glad I made it...


    Happy reading days

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  9. Hi Steven

    I used to bike to the local library and was so excited to be able to take books home, my family did not have money for books. Then at high school a whole new world opened for me when I found Leon Uris...

    I am always tearing bits out of the newspaper which I read cover to cover each day - I watch very little TV, or copying snatches of poems, beautiful colours, and words - I used to keep a notebook of words that enthralled me - I should get it down from the shelf and start again...

    we are like minds...

    Oh ...I pressed the paste button expecting to have my sign off appear and look a little poem arrived just for you...
    I picked it up from a John W Waterhouse painting page I was looking at moments ago.


    Ode To Spring

    Whispers Of Beauty
    Dragonflies, racing the wind
    Springtime colors dance
    Whippoorwill sings, lullabies
    Butterfly wings, applauding.

    Theresa Bailey Delashmit



    and now here are the Happy days

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  10. You know, you meet people and you just think you know them until you've had a peek at their books. Some people snoop in medicine cabinets, I snoop in bookshelves.

    Delwyn, I was amazed at how many of the same books we own! I lost count after about 20. I have almost every craft book you have. And I laughed out loud because I have a blank journal fetish, too! I can't pass up a good deal on a blank journal. I decoupage many of them and give some away as gifts. I love to decoupage those old-fashioned composition books.

    Thanks for the book tour, I really, really enjoyed it! Blessings!!!

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  11. well delwyn thanks for the fortuitous landing of that little poem!!!! steven

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  12. Wow, Delwin, that was a good walk through your library, and your life. You are so right about evolution of our personality, how we keep building new bridges to seek understanding and passionate connections with the world. I feel the stop here was one of those bridges for me. Thank you.

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  14. Loved the stroll through your library and your thoughts behind the various shelves and spaces.
    Books, unlike movies or video clips, allow our imagine to mould the characters and places and to create worlds that are unique to our own. Every reader will have his/her own experience as it truly allows one to escape to another place that has been created by both the writer and the readers interpretation.
    Happy 4th of July !

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  15. What a very good idea, a record of your bookshelves!
    bookshelves tell all about a person, they record development, changes and hopes. Books furnish a room but they also lay open a soul.
    Happy reading!

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  16. Me again.
    I've just scrolled down to your last post "being honest about yourself"
    You are a pearl.

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  17. Thanks for those book recs, Delwyn - I've made yet another note this morning!

    I have a tiny drawer on my desk devoted to little bits ripped out of the newspaper!

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  18. Hello Friko

    It's good to see you again.

    I think we all agree that looking at other people's bookshelves is very revealing...when I began blogging I found the book lists in the profile section a very good indication of the kind of rapport I may have with the fellow blogger...

    If our eyes are window to the soul maybe books are doorways...

    Happy days

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  19. Alaine,

    one day my son returned from Office Works with a large box filled with A4 exercise books that he had purchased for 1c each! I now find them very useful to keep a daily track of ideas, blogs photos, notes, people to visit...and so on...
    It keeps all the bits together in one place.

    Happy days

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  20. Hi Gary
    Its nice to see you again.

    Yes we all gave our own interpretation of a book, taking from it things that gel with us, provoke us, inspire us...which are all very subjective...that is the magic of the written word isn't it - a good writer enables us to conjure up a setting, story or characters from thin air...and to feel a whole range of emotions...some perhaps that we have never experienced in person.
    Each book is really a lesson in psychology.

    PS
    we don't celebrate 4th July...so I'll reverse the sentiment and send the wishes back to you...

    Happy days

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  21. Hello Rosaria

    Books are one way of connecting with places, people and events outside of our realm. Thank you for reaching out across the ocean...

    Happy days

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  22. Hi Marion

    Good snooping...me too... and you know some people's homes are bereft of books...I can't imagine that...

    When I visit the US I buy up those great composition books cos we don't have them and they are so sturdy...

    I love Borders for journals but many funky little shops turn up great journals. Like you I enjoy decorating my own...I have used art sketch books too as the base - but they can be expensive...
    I always look in the remainder bins in the 'office works' stores for treasures...and have also found some lovely books in Chinese shops...I always come home from travels with cards and journals - can you imagine me in Japan...heaven for the paper lover...


    Happy book days Marion

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  23. looking at people's bookshelves is one of my favorite things to do when i visit someone, so this virtual walk through yours is a delight. all i'm missing is sitting down and chatting with you over a cup of coffee.

    i print my blog too, at the end of every month and keep it in an ever-growing series of binders. they look so pretty on the shelf (i get them at bookbinders design) and i love to go back and read to see what i was thinking and how far i've come (or not). :-)

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  24. Bookshelves tell so much about the people who filled them. I'll have to look more closely at the titles of some of the novels you're not ready to part with to find more to read myself (after I finish the stack of reads that my friends have recommended).

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  25. Hi Julie

    that coffee and chat would be a treat...

    Do you copy the posts from the email as I do or have you a better way?

    I love to look back over them too at times ..

    Happy days

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  26. Hi Meri

    I am getting so many recommendations from other bloggers that I can't keep up either -
    I sent 3 orders to Amazon this week but they will take some time to arrive as expedited postage is about the same price as the books, so mainlt I use standard post.

    I resort to expedited at times and even then it comes out cheaper than if I bought them here - assuming I could find them...

    I have some Mary Oliver coming, some novels, and the tale of Genji plus the tale of Murasaki - (the author of Genji ) by Liza Dalby.

    2 books I always recommend are Wally Lamb's 'This much I know is True', and Jeffrey Eugenides 'Middlesex'. Have you read those?

    Happy days

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  27. Lovely reading list. I love Amy Tan book:)
    Wow! You are so thoughtful, printing out your blog entries just for your parents. I salute you Delwyn:)

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  28. Hi Yoon see

    I have read all of Amy Tan's books have you?


    Happy Days

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  29. Hi Delwyn, I'm smiling because everyone's studios seem to resemble each others. Now Marion and you have shown us yours; I'll have to show mine, too. I have one area dedicated to crafts, clippings, journals, ideas. I get enthused just walking by... and then I have the full bookcases always in need of another. I really got a lot out of Women Who Run with the Wolves; I started the Bhagavad Gita and then turned to the Sanskrit chants at yoga. I only have one Murakami: After Dark; I see you like him. I read Lamb's The Hour I First Believed about the Columbine massacre. Who doesn't LOVE East, Pray, Love? The idea that somewhere inside us is the full grown, mature person who pulls up the sometimes blocked junior-version person is so inspiring. Myths to Live by sounds like a wonderful book! Oates lives in New Jersey as I do and once she spoke at our local library's luncheon. I find her hard to read but so prolific! And how was You Gotta Have Balls?! Something I could use. Thanks again, Delwyn, for sharing all these marvels.

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  30. Hi Margaret

    I read the columbine Wally Lamb book and thought it was just too much - too long - too many subplots...although I did like the point he was making about generational trauma.

    Lily Brett is an Au writer living in NY.
    I have loved all her books..

    Yes please - show us your study...

    Happy Days

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  31. (sigh...)
    I really don't know what to say...(sigh again...)

    I love your books, and the genre niches that you've made...and...I wish you could come over and help me get my "den" in order!

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  32. Hi Tulsa

    I hope your sighs were ones of empathy between book lovers...

    Next time I come to Japan I will do it for you because I am going to visit you !

    Until then Happy days

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  33. I love nosying around other people's books, and am always disappointed when someone doesn't have a bookshelf. I wonder about them - how can you not have books, yet some people just don't. I have started sharing any novels I buy, but also have a shelves dedicated to certain genres. And many empty journals. (so I am not so strange afterall for collecting so many pretty journals!?)

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  34. Hi Violet

    It's nice to meet another journal lover and buyer...and yes Violet I too often wonder about the 'bookless'...

    Happy days

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  35. I love that you have journals which you have on the shelf but have never used yet...

    Thanks for letting us pry into your life and onto your bookshelf. I love recommendations. I have been told and read a lot about a book called "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski. Have you read this one?

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  36. Hi there Yvonne

    yes I plan to do lots more journalling...

    I haven't heard of the book so will put it on the list to look up...thank you

    Happy days

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