Someone offered to organize my bookshelves the other day and I started quaking in my shoes. I'm not mentioning names because I think she reads this blog occasionally and even if she doesn't, people who know her read this blog and someday one of them might say

"You know, Hero hates it when people threaten to organize her bookshelves. The thought terrifies her. It sends her spiraling into that dark place where panic attacks metamorphosis into full blown identity crises."

Unlikely, yes. But I feel safer not naming names. The possibility of someone grouping my books by subject matter or, even worse, alphabetizing my bookshelf does not make me feel safe. I love my bookshelves. Love might not be a strong enough word. It thrills me that Lorna Crozier's Inventing the Hawk is snuggled up next to the Penny Whistle Birthday Party book and Isaac Asimov's Words of Science, that Shakespeare's The Tempest in nestled in between a battered copy of The Blue Fairy Book and Chris Hedges collection of essays: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning. Leonard Cohen and Bruno Bettelham share shelf space with Mike Holmes and Lee Child...I can only imagine their disdain and I love the thought. I like to imagine cocktail parties where all of my books are the guests. In fact, that would be the only organizational system I could actually get behind. I could arrange my books based on the debates they might have, stack them according to how much tension they could generate together.

The scattered bookshelves are my favourite thing about my house. Well, along with my wall of haphazardly framed family photos and the fact that my cutlery drawer plays a thin, mechanical sounding jingle bells when you open it because someone stuck the Christmas Train's tender in it ages ago and no one's ever bothered to fish it out. I live with boys who scatter their belongings throughout the house like seeds they are trying to grow: A tree of hot-wheels here, a bush full of backpacks and half read library books growing in a field of odd sneakers and marble shaped flowers. I love that all of our belongings somehow manage to get along and find their own nooks and crannies and unexpected hiding spots. I love that on any given day I can find a partially constructed Lego ship, a plasticine pizza, an old birthday card and a book on Canada's National Parks on my computer desk. It makes my house interesting. My house is messy but it is interesting. So are my bookshelves. Although obviously not everyone feels this way. Just ask "she who must not be named."