I have a dream…
…and I think every book-lover shares it.
Who doesn’t love a good library? Say what you like about e-books and audiobooks, but the tactile pleasure of picking up a real printed book is very real.
The heft of the thing in your hand, the feel of it against your fingers, the smooth sliding sounds of pages and endpapers as you open it up, and even the smell as you stick your nose in and get a really good look. A cold plastic tablet has none of that.
Just running my hands along the bumps and patterns and texture of the spine; I don’t get that with a paperback, and it’s an enjoyable experience to savour the moment before cracking it open and settling down with it to take a magic carpet ride to a realm of delight.
No, a library is more than books and shelves and computers. It is an entrance to enchantment and adventure and excitement and promise.
There are few things I like more than a session at the library, prowling the stacks for something that looks — and feels, and smells — like it could be good for an afternoon of delight, and claiming a comfy chair in a corner to get better acquainted with my selection.
And if it doesn’t work out, hey, I’ll sniff out something more intriguing. That’s what a well-stacked library is all about. Plenty of choice.
My local library is over a hundred years old. A real building, none of your glass and cement monsters. The ceilings are high, the stonework is ornate, the windows have survived a thousand winter storms, the bookshelves don’t quite fit the floorplan and there are odd little niches and corners.
There’s a mezzanine floor where I can — if I get lucky — score an old leather armchair where I can lift my mind from the page to look down at the ground floor and watch the action there before resuming my literary quest.
And there’s always action in a library. The librarians pushing their trolleys quietly about and stretching up to reach the top shelf. The schoolchildren scampering along the aisles, the high school students sending looks at each other that are sometimes returned; and if I spot something like that, I may just forget my book for a while. I can almost hear the fizz of teenaged hormones as they play their little games.
Junior storytime is always fun. The children sit enthralled on the carpet at the feet of a hunky librarian as he describes adventures with pirates and dragons and princesses in golden gowns. He has a low voice that makes the young mothers lean in close to catch each husky word.
I sit in my comfy chair where some trick of the acoustics gives me every whisper, and I daydream along with the storytime listeners.
Office workers pop in late in the afternoon, pushing determinedly between the books in search of a thriller for the daily train ride. They rarely linger; women in their business clothes poring over the romances, young men in jackets hunting down the busy person’s guide to success in every subject. Sometimes they glance at each other, their mouths bending at the corners and their eyes lighting up, and I imagine their thoughts drifting along the same paths. I watch it all.
I could live in that library quite happily. The place is always clean, someone else pays the internet bill, there is a well-stocked snack machine in the foyer…
But there’s always an end to it as the librarians hustle out the dawdling readers, switch the lights off, close the doors, and turn the key. I’m shut out of my magic kingdom, out under the cold and leafless street trees, just a book and a library card held in my embrace before trudging home alone. Maybe one winter evening I should hunker down low in my leather chair when they call time on the day.
Just once, this girl wants to be licked in the library all night long.
Britni
