when i was little one of my very favorite things to do was to play library. all that organization and order. the enforced quiet. me in full charge. books as a means of escape. shocking, i know.
in fact, my happiest childhood memory is of the day i got my very first library card. now, i think we've established that my memory is shotty at best. but this one comes in clear as a bell.
i remember waiting for months for that library card. you had to be able to write your FULL name to get it. a daunting task at that age to say the least. so about 4? an early 5?
i practiced and practiced. when i finally mastered my name, my mother took me to the library right there on highway 101 in fort bragg, california. a big old beautiful building with the ocean behind it and a whole new world in front of me. we walked up the steps and i remember thinking that this was the best day of my life.
boy that counter was tall! but on my tippy toes and with the steadiest hand i could, i signed that library card and that was that!
in fact, one other very distinct memory i have is when my mother left me home from a library trip as a punishment. oh god how i cried. it was foggy and cool that day as it often is on the california coast and i was wearing a dress. my mother said i needed to change out of the dress and put on pants, or put pants under the dress before we went. i refused.
even as the compliant middle child i often exercised my right to be a butt head.
and even when she threatened to leave me home and take the others to the library i STILL refused. of course believing she would never make good on the threat. because she knew how much it meant to me, i figured. the rationale of a child. she wouldn't dare. so i stood my ground.
but she did dare. i got left behind and i cried my little library lovin' eyes out in my stupid dress with no pants underneath.
anyhow, my love of the library never waned. i have only come to love it more. i am shameless and indiscriminate when it comes to the shelves. i will go to any section, i will grab whatever looks good. i have very few loyalties, if any, and any book is subject to my whims.
i am insatiable. i can have up to 100 items at a time at my library. and sometimes i have. oh, they used to say it was limitless, with a small laugh as if anyone would ever have "too many" checked out. but oddly enough, they've recently instituted a policy. hmmm. but, no matter, i can go back as many times as i like. casting off and casting on. a never ending river of books.
i have traveled places and if the stay is long enough, i secure a library card there, or make sure there is access for myself and the boybarians. for a funeral in my hometown, for a birth or two in my goddess children's hometown. it doesn't matter the place, the library is an easy constant.
in fact i envy the goddess mother immensely as she lives less than a mile from the very oldest library in her very old state. it's a wonderful little building and so much history. it also doesn't hurt that the librarian there is so very dreamy. good lord, with his accent i just can't place, and his piercing eyes, and his...well, you get the picture.
in fact, when i grow up i want to be an academic librarian. one day, when life settles down, i hope to stop deferring my acceptance to the institution that will train me to do just that, and get down to business.
in the meantime, i satisfy my cravings the best way i know how. primarily by patronizing my own local library. but when it really gets bad, i become nostalgic and pining for libraries i have known, and a dreamer of libraries still yet to discover. often as an insatiable voyeur who just can't get enough.
and it is in that spirit that i bring you this week's moment(s) of zen. Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut. please enjoy. and for heaven's sake, shhhhhh.
x.
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