in good company
February 10, 2017 § 5 Comments
This morning the library was a contrast of sunlight and shadows, soundless save for the quiet industry of my work; staccato keystrokes interrupting the gentle hum of a singular overhead light. The effervescent conversations that drift across Friday’s desks were replaced by the intermittent punctuation of unanswered calls as the telephone marked time with tones that wound through the air like the plastic cords I once twirled around empty thoughts.
I nestled into the noisy silence with the delight of my childhood fondness for the company of books, moving between the dust motes as I navigated well tread routines to a soundtrack of solitude. The occasional scrape of metal against the book depository or the weighted thump of materials tumbling into the carpeted recess of the cumbersome bins were mischievous reminders of my luxury. I was a child left to wander familiar nooks, curiosity curbed by the holiest of admiration for the sanctity of so many carefully constructed stories.
Hushed footsteps and squeaky cart wheels I drifted down empty rows of sleepy books, while outside the sun chased away the new fallen snow as the gutters shed their burden in pregnant raindrops against the concrete.
book ’em
February 2, 2016 § 9 Comments
On Sunday I escaped the loosely configured routine of our typical Sunday to explore our new public library with both children. It was a homecoming of sorts, a happy reunion of lost afternoons; memories of old experiences in an unfolding moment of discovery.
For the past nine years we had lived in an unincorporated neighborhood, where the cost of joining our local library was beyond the limitations of our budget – with one exception. On a singular occasion, several years past, we invested our holiday savings into twelve months of indulgence; scooping piles of books into heavy bags, weekly, to fill endless hours of adventure.
At the conclusion of that year, we returned to supplementing our personal library with our children’s school libraries, friendly exchanges, school book sales, and e-readers. Still, we reminisced the luxury of squandering afternoons among shelves of unread stories. The liberty of endless titles.
Frequently, as our errands lead us past the grandness of a building to which we so fleetingly belonged, we would find ourselves lost to sentimental musings of that year among her walls. We resigned ourselves to contentment with the library we built at home.
Books gifted from family friends, keepsakes of my husband’s and my own childhoods, beloved series of our children’s early favorites and required school readings endlessly stacked and reorganized with great affection.
Here, in our new community, it took me too long to consider the possibility of a different experience. Having moved at the start of the school year, my children’s backpacks and hands are perpetually filled with those titles that follow them home from school.
Sunday, I was more a child than my own children.
I visited familiar stories as I sought specific titles, let my hand linger in acknowledgement along well-worn bindings. It was the place of every library I’ve loved and ever story I have lost myself to.
I was a child with a wagon and a girl with large dreams.
A new mother in our first family home, a closely knit community with a modest library just an unhurried walk away. The place of my son and daughter’s first library cards, hot summer days and cold winter afternoons given to stories.
A mother to older children squandering savings on a passport to a year of privilege among so many pages.
A reader and dreamer once more entitled to travel the world of storytellers and sages for free.
scribblechic 