Each week in my Creative Writing Non-Fiction class we are given writing prompts for our weekly journal. Libraries was our last prompt for the semester. My instructor encouraged me to share this entry…
I Collect Libraries
I collect libraries. In the fifty-five years of my existence, I have held thirteen different library cards. When my kids were little and we did long road trips across the country, I would map out all the small towns on the route and locate their libraries. The bathrooms were almost always clean and there was plenty of free entertainment, sometimes free food. The kids would run off some energy while we parents sat and relaxed for a bit. There is nothing, and I mean nothing relaxing about sitting in a car with a two-year-old for eight long hours.
Libraries were lifesavers for me. Beacons of civility and endless possibilities. The librarian at the A. H. Brown library in Mobridge, South Dakota saw my frantic face the moment my feet walked through the small Carnegie building. Built in 1929, I can still conjure this exceptionally square building with large-wide windows all the way around. Like all old libraries it smelled almost like Barnes & Noble or coffee and books. I say almost because, old libraries smell like books too, but they smell more like stale burnt coffee in a Styrofoam cup.
The first thing I asked was to use the bathroom. It was just over an hour drive from home. The bathrooms were downstairs in the basement. It was creepy, even if they had painted the old rock foundation bright white. The girl’s bathroom was the size of a phonebooth. I walked in and had to turn around in place to shut the door. When I closed the door, I noticed the eye and hook for keeping it shut because the door opened on a spring; attached at one end to the door and the other to the frame. I sat down and my knees pushed the door open just enough that I could see the through to the hall. I still have dreams about that bathroom. It is always the same dream. Someone is always trying to get in and they are peaking through the crack. Just like having little kids while trying to use the bathroom at home.
Ione was the librarian. She reminded me of a forest witch, in a good way. She always wore long poofy skirts with bulky tops with a fashionable belt around her waist. Her hair was thick and a combination of faded red, dull blonde, and grey streaks. She loosely pulled it off her face and held it back in a puffy bun just on the crown of her head. I thought she was beautiful and she always held some kind of power over me.
When I explained my recent move, I asked about a library card. “Is it possible for me to have one?”
“Of course, it’s possible. Follow me.”
I did.
We wove through the shelves in a non-verbal tour of the one room library. It would have been quicker to walk a straight line; the square footage was around two-thousand square feet. But the silent tour was appreciated. At her desk she took out a blank recipe card. She asked for me to write out my name, address, phone number, and that was that. I could check out up to five books at a time and they were due back in ten days.
“Um, I live an hour away.”
“I know where you live.” She winked. I mean she really winked at me as if she had secret knowledge of exactly where I lived.
“I am afraid I only come into town every two weeks for groceries and supplies.”
She took my index card and made a note. “Okay, trial basis. You can have your books for two weeks.” Winking again she asked. “What do you like, fiction or non-fiction?’
Before I could even contemplate this, she said, “Non-fiction.” She was so right. She was magic.
“Follow me.”
I did.
We wove back though the shelves to a corner I failed to see earlier. A bit dark. A bit mysterious with all the old books in this particular corner of the library.
She fussed. She bent down and mumbled to herself. Pulled out a book and pushed it back. Pulled out another and flipped it over. After handing me the book, she pulled out three more.
“See where you get in two weeks with these.”
I had them devoured in less than a week. The books were women’s stories who had made the big migration to the prairie back in the late 1800’s. There were copies of letter, personal diaries and stories told down through the times. None of the stories had glamor. It was hard living the life of a “Soddy.” Tales of rattlesnakes. Grass fires, loneliness, death, death of children, insanity, and the list went on. One woman wrote how everyday she would just leave her small children in the house and star walking a straight line away from the it. She described it as a sea of grass, swaying like waves around her. When she went as far as she could go and her house was just a dot on the horizon, she would walk back. It is what kept her from losing it. Her husband had been away looking for work. That was common.
Not much to do in the high prairies of the Standing Rock. It was a long two weeks. I went back and traded in my books for a pile of new ones, begging for a few extra for the next two weeks reading material. To which she happily obliged, I was relieved. I too felt swallowed up by the sea of the prairie. Those stories, but more importantly, Ione, kept me from getting lost at sea those long six months.
On my third visit I felt comfortable to ask her if she knew a place where I might buy a bottle of wine. She did, the one and only good liquor store in town, in her opinion. I thanked her and turned to leave.
“Are you going there now?”
“I am.” I replied.
“Here, can you take this and give it to Chuck?” She pulled out a mid-sized brown paper bag. I knew it had been used a few times before by the wrinkles in the worn paper. “It’s his lunch. Leftovers.”
“Sure.”
“He’s my husband.”
I collect libraries. They are my lifesavers. My beacons of civilities and endless possibilities.
Chris Writes 