libraries.
my favorite far off mystical land. among the shelves are lands anywhere you choose to venture off to.
my school library was full of books from floor to ceiling. each book summoning me for a mental vacation. after school i would head over there before volleyball practice to finish up some homework. i always wish i had more time to take advantage of all the books. one of my favorites growing up was on my sixth grade summer reading list, “holes” i still remember how the book played out like a movie in my head as i read each word. when i was done, i felt as if i had watched an entire feature film. really the only source of entertainment we had in such a small town, the magic of the book.
during my college weekends, i discovered the lafayette library. nestled in the green hills of the east bay this library had a california charm- a contemporary twist but still felt regal. i spent most of my weekends in there working through organic chemistry problems or reading for biology. i would be seated at the cherry wood desks with a green overhead reading light, other times i sat outside underneath the gazebo engulfed in english ivy, the veins leaving little gaps for the sun to shine through.
at the college campus, my favorite part of the library were the little cubicles, particularly the hidden ones. a walk up the stairs and and through the rows of bookshelves and there was my spot. the single cubicle lit by a little reading light overlooking the campus the white buildings with the spanish clay tile roofs surrounded by the giant pine and spruce trees of northern california. i spent my evenings studying until my eyeballs hurt and occasionally got a chance to pick up a book that would take me on a little thought vacation away from school studies.
the most sublime library i ever listed was the new york city public library. it was an out of a movie kind of experience. somewhere, where i’d like to think james joyce or edgar allan poe would be spilling their thoughts out onto paper on a snowy winter evening. the grand rose reading room, the large wooden desks lit by mini golden lamps, the handpainted murals above blessing my eyes when i needed a break in between words, and the large windows behind the hundreds of thousands of books where the clouds of november were rolling in for an excitingly frightening manhattan thunderstorm.
the library,
the mind garden.
