I noticed today, while continuing to plod along in our “library” (update coming soon I promise……) a peculiar thing.

While shuffling through books and arranging them on shelves; while sorting and grouping and weeding and pruning, while making cuts and making room, I realized my husband and I differ greatly when it comes to the “heft” of our books.

It is one of those things I have always “known” but never fully realized.

Not until today.

Not until I wandered the room looking for shelf space, his book in one hand, mine in the other.

Not until I realized my book could slip easily undetected onto almost any shelf; could fill the hollow space between ribs when the books next to it inhale and be absorbed, unnoticed, when they let their next breath out.

His book however commanded a dedicated space. Hard backed and solid, there was no give in its rigid spine, no flexible cartilage, no “wedging it in” between unsuspecting tomes.

It is one of those discoveries you make when you not only see the difference, but feel it.

Feel the density of pages, the weight of words. Realize they are disproportionate and wonder what it all means.

My husband is a patient man.

Steadfast and true, his books reflect his ability to commit, to invest, to spend weeks and months with the same characters. He is able to juggle multiple timelines. He knows the past contributes to the present and propels the future forward.

He knows we do not exist in a bubble and wants all that came before and after reflected in his books.

He wants the whole story.

I want the moment.

I don’t care about my characters before or after.

I don’t care about the struggle of their ancestors or what they do once the last page is written.

I know they carry all of that with them, embedded in their bones, but I don’t need it spelled out to me page after page after page.

I want to know who they are in this one moment in time.

I want their desperation and their disappointment, their passion and their surrender.

I want to know what they are capable of in this defining moment.

My husband is solid and sure and unwavering in who he is.

I vacillate and assimilate and shrink to fit the shelf.

My husband is the product of deep roots.

I am the manifestation of fleeting connections.

He is the novel.

I am the flash.

Our story is written and shelved, I suppose, somewhere in the middle.