Library Musings

I thought of a great opening line, and now that I’m sitting at my computer typing and ready to finally write it down, I can remember it. I came to the library for a change of scenery and to get away from the usual noises of my apartment brought on by my upstairs neighbours. I don’t know how much I will accomplish here, but at least I got out of my apartment for a bit. And the part of me that likes efficiency loves that the grocery store is on the way home and I can stop in for some groceries. That means with on trip out of the house, I can make two stops and do two things without going out of my way. That’s amazing!

One of the hazards coming to a public place like the library is not just the potential for germs, but also different noises. At least these are different noises that I’d hear at home, and therefore less annoying. Why my upstairs neighbours need to stomp their feet with every single step, I’ll never know. Anyway, the modern library is not usually a quiet library. Even if the librarians weren’t chatting with each other and that guy over there wasn’t on a conference call and those friends studying together weren’t chatting to each other and that other person wasn’t chatting on their phone and the small child wasn’t screeching with delight at being in the library, the library still has its own sounds.

That means that even if everyone was quiet there would still be the sounds of the library. There’s the ventilation system (thank goodness for that), the sounds of books being taken off of shelves and then re-shelved, the trundling book cart rolling along, and the sounds of boots shoes shuffling across the carpeted floors.

Still, there’s something about being in the library, other than the change of scenery that is comforting for me.

Thank goodness the books can’t talk. Or can they? Maybe the books don’t talk out loud, but in any case I can’t sit too close to them because then I won’t work and I’ll just keep looking at them wondering what they’re about and fighting the urge to get up and look at them. As it is, I am close enough to a lot of books right now that I can read the spines of. Oddly enough (considering I am stopping for groceries on the way home), I seem to be facing shelves full of books about food and cooking. How much longer until I get to go buy food? Incidentally, while there are many books about food and cooking in the library, there is no food allowed in the library. I can understand why: “food attracts bugs and bugs eat books”(remembered from a sign in my former university’s library), and people (myself included) can’t be trusted to get all of the food into their mouths and not leave crumbs.

I hadn’t intended to write about the library and books when I first arrived here, so I guess I’m feeling inspired. I could be writing in a different place, or the fact that I am surrounded by so many books that include so many ideas. Where do people get all of these ideas from, and where did they get the energy to write them all down? Even feeling inspired, there is still the act of writing, organizing, re-writing, and re-organizing of thoughts to occur and that takes time and energy.

I thought I had just pop-up is: Is there anything inherently funny about the library? Of course I looked around at the people I can see from where I sit in the library to see if they’re doing anything funny because starting with people is a reliable place to start when one is looking for humour. The problem is that nobody is doing anything funny. Maybe it’s the library inspiring them to be serious.  Except the children that is. They’re very excited to be here, especially when they get to run to the front door of the library for something, and then run back to the children’s area where the coolest books are (they’ve got pictures!)

Oh dear, now I’m getting hungry. Thank goodness food isn’t allowed in the library or I would be distracted by getting up for a snack. “I really need it” my stomach would say, and then I would tell it “Okay”. Today, though, it’s back to work and possibly more work later deleting this paragraph.

Reading is a lot easier than writing and reading a lot is good for inspiring writing, and things need to be written in order for readers to have things to read, and maybe eventually write. In that case, what came first: the book or the writer? The answer is actually, a snack and a nap because nothing and nobody has written more books than procrastination. However, that’s been a topic of another article.

I often wonder as I am writing whether what I am writing would make sense to someone else: would they “get it”? As I sit writing in the library I wonder if the authors of all of these books had the same thought as they were writing. They got to find out as soon as their editor got hold of their writing I guess, and then changed things so that the writing did make sense. I think that’s awesome that someone can read someone else’s writing, say “this is good, but doesn’t make sense”, and then figure out how to make it make sense while still keeping the original ideas of the author intact. Maybe it’s that the writing made some sense; enough that it could be made sense of by an editor. Cheers to all of the editors out there for doing this sometimes big job, and to the authors for writing down the ideas in the first place. All so that we could have books to read and libraries to think write in and think about things.

I guess I’ll wrap up this bout of writing now so that I can go and look at some books (introverts love books), and no more bright ideas are coming. It seems that my stomach is serious about wanting food and it’s taking over my brain. Good thing I made a grocery list. The trick will be sticking to it.