I’m reading a book called Naked, Drunk and Writing. It’s one of the glories of aging that I no longer feel a need to hide the cover when someone asks me what I’m reading. Age lets you shed a few inhibitions and writing requires that you do. Not that I am naked, drunk and writing, you understand. But being willing to not pull any punches always makes a writer’s prose better. It’s like the fantasy novel I’ve been working on for years now. It got better after I stopped trying to keep my protagonist from killing anyone. It’s a fantasy after all. The bad guys have to die.
It’s also why we love memoirs, I think. The willingness of an author to bare their life and soul on paper is like picking at a scab. You just can’t stop going back and doing it. Or, in the case of the memoir, reading it. Whether its dumb choices, crazy addictions, or bad marriages, we love when people expose themselves, warts and all. Not just because we live in a voyeuristic culture, but because we want to learn from other people’s self exploration. We want another’s soul journey to help lead us, or embark us, on our own. Of course, there are some stories that are more soul bending than I can handle. People are always asking if I’ve read Lucky by Alice Sebold, but I have to admit Sebold’s story of being raped and left for dead is just more than I can handle. I feel the same about Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club. I know its great literature, but I just can’t manage to get through it. I’m afraid I want my soul exploration with a side of humor.
Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm in during the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish is much more my speed. Kalish and her siblings antics growing up on a farm are fun to read. Plus is really makes you appreciate the ease with which we can have a chicken dinner in this day and age.
I’m partial to stories of spiritual searches outside of a particular religion. Barbara Brown Taylor’s memoir Leaving Church, the story of her giving up her work as a Episcopal priest, is a favorite of mine. She continues the story of living spiritually outside of a church in An Altar in the World: a Geography of Faith. Sue Monk Kidd’s feminist awakening in Dance of the Dissident Daughter was me a life changing read for me. Her follow-up, Traveling with Pomegranates, a joint tale by her and her daughter, may not be quite as earth shaking as Dance, but as a reader it was great to be able to tag along on their journey. Mystery author, Nevada Barr’s spiritual autobiography, Seeking Enlightenment Hat by Hat is told through the hats she wore to different churches.
I love memoirs by writers about how they became writers, or stayed writers, or try to write, or pull their hair out writing. They’re usually inspiring, funny, and well written. Stephen King’s On Writing is one of the best. I can still picture him writing over a hot dryer as he worked in a laundromat. His realization that he wrote more when he had a menial job than when he had a professional one, still sticks with me. Lisa Scottoline’s and Anne Lamott’s reflections on life, including their early writing careers, were great reads for someone who wants to write. You can read about that in Scottoline’s Why My Third Husband will be a Dog or Lamott’s Traveling Mercies.
I’m always looking for new memoirs to read and I have to admit I do judge books by their covers, or at least their titles. Why else would I be reading Naked, Drunk, and Writing? It’s the funny ones that catch my fancy. That’s why the following are all on my to-read list: I’m Sorry you Feel that Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog by Diana Joseph; Animal Magnetism by Rita Mae Brown; Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World by Mary Pipher; Confession of a Counterfeit Farm Girl by Susan McCorkindale; Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn by Catherine Friend; and I Loved, I Lost, I made Spaghetti by Guilia Melucci. Unfortunately the list grows longer and longer and time, alas, grows shorter. So I better get reading!
Friday, April 22, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Directions
I’ve been ruminating on how instructions and directions are given these days. While Bruce and I were in England last May, we kept driving around a lot of traffic circles, or round-abouts as the British like to call them. Partly because there’s a round-about ever mile or two in England, but mostly because once we got in one we just kept going round and round trying to figure out where to get out! And even when we did finally get out, we were usually heading in the wrong direction.
In England road signs just didn’t say what I was expecting them to say. To start with, they were usually right after the turn, which wasn’t quite enough warning for us. They also rarely told the road number or the direction. Instead there was an arrow and the name of a town down the road. It wasn’t always the next town, or a very large town, which meant it often wasn’t on the map. So the signs really didn’t help if you had no idea where you were going. They were designed for people who already knew where they were.
Instructions are often like that too. They are written by people who already know how to do what the instructions are designed to tell you how to do. As I see it, that means instructions and directions are written for people who already know how to get where they are going, or how to do what needs to be done. They aren’t written for those of us who are lost or learning. I like to think of us as the explorers in life, but maybe we are just the terminally clueless.
This all came home to me when I was downloading the Adobe software needed to be able to check out the library’s downloadable media. I followed the directions from the online catalog and a window popped with a choice of selections. I could check “authorize software now (strongly suggested)” or “use software without authorizing (you can authorize later).” Authorizing required having an adobe account, which I didn’t have, so I decided to download and authorize later. Of course that was a mistake, because even though I later went in and created an adobe account and authorized the software, it wouldn’t work. It seems to me that it really shouldn’t say “authorization strongly suggested,” when in fact it won’t work if you don’t authorize as you download. The message should be more like “listen up; you need to do this now!”
Sometimes, I wonder if we are so concerned with having a choice and not sounding like we are commanding someone to do something that we can’t bring ourselves to say “you have to do it this way.” “Should, have to and need to” are some of my favorite words. As in “you should, I have to and we need to.” A friend told me once “Priscilla, if you didn’t say ‘should’ you’d have nothing to say at all.” So, I’ve been trying to be good and not ‘should’ all over myself and everyone else. But really I’m beginning to think there are times when we just ‘should.” It’s like watching college students run around in tee shirts in zero degree weather. I think about saying “wouldn’t you be warmer in a coat?” And then I think what I really need to be said is “put a coat on!”
So here’s my ‘should’ for the day. If you are downloading the Adobe digital editions software to use the library e-books, Adobe may ‘strongly suggest’ you authorize the software at the time of downloading, but I’m saying you “should, have to, must” do it. It’s not a suggestion, it’s a requirement. Otherwise it won’t work!
In England road signs just didn’t say what I was expecting them to say. To start with, they were usually right after the turn, which wasn’t quite enough warning for us. They also rarely told the road number or the direction. Instead there was an arrow and the name of a town down the road. It wasn’t always the next town, or a very large town, which meant it often wasn’t on the map. So the signs really didn’t help if you had no idea where you were going. They were designed for people who already knew where they were.
Instructions are often like that too. They are written by people who already know how to do what the instructions are designed to tell you how to do. As I see it, that means instructions and directions are written for people who already know how to get where they are going, or how to do what needs to be done. They aren’t written for those of us who are lost or learning. I like to think of us as the explorers in life, but maybe we are just the terminally clueless.
This all came home to me when I was downloading the Adobe software needed to be able to check out the library’s downloadable media. I followed the directions from the online catalog and a window popped with a choice of selections. I could check “authorize software now (strongly suggested)” or “use software without authorizing (you can authorize later).” Authorizing required having an adobe account, which I didn’t have, so I decided to download and authorize later. Of course that was a mistake, because even though I later went in and created an adobe account and authorized the software, it wouldn’t work. It seems to me that it really shouldn’t say “authorization strongly suggested,” when in fact it won’t work if you don’t authorize as you download. The message should be more like “listen up; you need to do this now!”
Sometimes, I wonder if we are so concerned with having a choice and not sounding like we are commanding someone to do something that we can’t bring ourselves to say “you have to do it this way.” “Should, have to and need to” are some of my favorite words. As in “you should, I have to and we need to.” A friend told me once “Priscilla, if you didn’t say ‘should’ you’d have nothing to say at all.” So, I’ve been trying to be good and not ‘should’ all over myself and everyone else. But really I’m beginning to think there are times when we just ‘should.” It’s like watching college students run around in tee shirts in zero degree weather. I think about saying “wouldn’t you be warmer in a coat?” And then I think what I really need to be said is “put a coat on!”
So here’s my ‘should’ for the day. If you are downloading the Adobe digital editions software to use the library e-books, Adobe may ‘strongly suggest’ you authorize the software at the time of downloading, but I’m saying you “should, have to, must” do it. It’s not a suggestion, it’s a requirement. Otherwise it won’t work!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
A Room of One’s Own
I’ve always wanted to live in a house that had its own library. In England last May, we visited loads of estates and country homes. It was the libraries that fascinated me; huge rooms lined from floor to celing with book shelves, cozy nooks, window seats, and overstuffed chairs to curl up in. Ladders lined the walls so you could climb up and reach the books up by the ceiling, which was always a good twelve to fifteen feet up. If you grabbed a book, you could hide in a corner, curled up in a chair, facing a window that looked out across the gardens, the moors, or the sheep fields. Virginia Woolf wrote that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. It’s not just for writing fiction though, or even just for women. Everyone needs a room of their own; a place to curl up with a good book and your own thoughts; a little solitude, a sanctuary.
At the moment, coming into the library early in the morning is as close as I’ll get to having my own private library. While the building is dark and empty, I get to commune alone with these my friends, the stories of the world, the minds and lives and imaginations of people stretching back for centuries. I can walk among the shelves, running my hands over the spines of books, looking for old friends to sit in front of an evening fire with, or new ones who I long to get to know. A book is like a room of one’s own, a place of refuge, learning, and self-discovery. They can take you to another place or time, submerge you in someone else’s experience and thoughts, or open you to new ideas and ways of being.
So, for a cold winter evening of finding refuge in a good book here are some suggestions. There’s always Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. It’s not an easy read, in my opinion, but thought provoking and interesting to see what’s changed since she wrote it and what hasn’t. Or try a classic. There’s been a rush on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee lately and it’s no wonder. It’s one of those books I can read every once in a while and it still grips me. Or for a little light mystery try Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. I love this mystery where a flock of sheep figure out who killed their shepherd and then have to find a way to make the humans understand them. I’m partial to sheep, of course, but it’s still a fun read.
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot is a favorite of mine, but be prepared to be caught laughing out loud at the antics of this Yorkshire veterinarian and his neighbors. For something newer there’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen, the story of Janzen’s returning home to recuperate after a car accident. As an academic who left her family’s religion behind, Janzen finds herself once again immersed in Mennonite culture. Her account of going home, even if only temporarily, is hilarious.
For some good non-fiction, Wendell Berry’s classic The Unsettling of America is worth the effort. It’s not an easy or fast read, but Berry’s thoughts on American agriculture are as timely now as when they were first written in 1977. Maybe even more timely. Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness by Ariel Gore is an interesting take on the new “happiness” industry. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich is also worth a look. For something totally new, (and no, I haven’t read it yet) reading I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish seems like a really good way to spend the winter.
So even if you can’t have your own private library or a room of your own, find a good chair, a warm spot and a good book. It will be almost like having “a room of your own.”
At the moment, coming into the library early in the morning is as close as I’ll get to having my own private library. While the building is dark and empty, I get to commune alone with these my friends, the stories of the world, the minds and lives and imaginations of people stretching back for centuries. I can walk among the shelves, running my hands over the spines of books, looking for old friends to sit in front of an evening fire with, or new ones who I long to get to know. A book is like a room of one’s own, a place of refuge, learning, and self-discovery. They can take you to another place or time, submerge you in someone else’s experience and thoughts, or open you to new ideas and ways of being.
So, for a cold winter evening of finding refuge in a good book here are some suggestions. There’s always Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. It’s not an easy read, in my opinion, but thought provoking and interesting to see what’s changed since she wrote it and what hasn’t. Or try a classic. There’s been a rush on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee lately and it’s no wonder. It’s one of those books I can read every once in a while and it still grips me. Or for a little light mystery try Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. I love this mystery where a flock of sheep figure out who killed their shepherd and then have to find a way to make the humans understand them. I’m partial to sheep, of course, but it’s still a fun read.
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot is a favorite of mine, but be prepared to be caught laughing out loud at the antics of this Yorkshire veterinarian and his neighbors. For something newer there’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen, the story of Janzen’s returning home to recuperate after a car accident. As an academic who left her family’s religion behind, Janzen finds herself once again immersed in Mennonite culture. Her account of going home, even if only temporarily, is hilarious.
For some good non-fiction, Wendell Berry’s classic The Unsettling of America is worth the effort. It’s not an easy or fast read, but Berry’s thoughts on American agriculture are as timely now as when they were first written in 1977. Maybe even more timely. Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness by Ariel Gore is an interesting take on the new “happiness” industry. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich is also worth a look. For something totally new, (and no, I haven’t read it yet) reading I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish seems like a really good way to spend the winter.
So even if you can’t have your own private library or a room of your own, find a good chair, a warm spot and a good book. It will be almost like having “a room of your own.”
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Five Great Christmas Gifts for Librarians
1. Avoid feeding the librarian bleu cheese, or the book equivalent. There’s something about blue- green mold on food or books that makes us lose our appetites. It’s a funny thing about books getting wet, even when you blow them dry with a hair dryer, we still know they were wet once. Librarians may not be omniscient, but we know a few things. Dried books still mold, the glue dissolves, the pages fall out. So as a Christmas gift to all librarians please, don’t go surfing, water skiing, or bathe with your library books. We can’t keep a book that’s been water damaged. It has to be replaced. Even though we have a science club, we try not to have mold-growing experiments going on the shelves. So, please, if a book gets wet, tell us. Yes, we will ask you to pay for it, but isn’t that better than causing the librarians to curse and have mini-strokes when they find moldy books on the shelves?
2. Promise to not use your library books as trivets. Here’s another funny thing, mylar covers (the little plastic covers we put on books) melt. The big melted hole in the mylar cover is usually a dead give away that you’ve been setting hot pans on your library books. Replacing the covers isn’t impossible, but usually they are glued on, which means we may tear the book when we replace it. So please, buy yourself a trivet or pot holder for Christmas. We’ll consider it a personal gift to the librarians.
3. Don’t use library DVDs or CDs as dinner plates, Frisbees, or other disk shaped items. We don’t mind the occasional fingerprint or even small scratch. Usually we can clean those off, or resurface the disk. But DVDs that are returned with spaghetti sauce on them, or mud, or paint, really get us wondering. Although spaghetti sauce and mud will wash off (we just create some really great stories about how it got there), the paint doesn’t. That means the DVD has to be replaced. So feel free to put the CDs and DVDs in the player, but as a Christmas present to librarians everywhere, please don’t use them as Frisbees, dinner plates, or shovels.
4. Buy yourself a book mark for Christmas instead of turning down the corners of the page to mark your place. There’s no doubt about it. Librarians are a persnickety lot. We like everything perfect. We like a place for everything and everything in its place. We like books to last and stay looking clean and new. Every time the corner of a page gets turned down, it makes a crease and weakens the page. Eventually the corner will tear off and the book, although still readable is less than pristine. Even though it’s an easy way to mark your page and it doesn’t seem to be doing much harm, it drives librarians nuts! We have loads of bookmarks that we will give you for free. You can get a bookmark with our hours, or one with a story courtesy of the Homer Writers’ group. We have bookmarks about OverDrive, the downloadable audio system, and book marks with animals on them. We have bookmarks from the summer reading program and lost and found bookmarks that were left in books. So get a bookmark for Christmas and don’t turn down the corners of the pages!
5. Take a vow to never crack the spine of another book. Books just aren’t made like they used to be. The pages aren’t sewn in. There’s no reinforcement other than glue. If you’re the first one to read it, it’s not going to lay flat, so you can eat dinner and read with no hands. Forcing the spine open so that the book lays flat cracks the glue, makes the pages fall out, and means the book will need to be replaced soon. Lately we have books falling apart after only five or six readings. But if it’s a copy of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, there are a lot more than six people who want to read it. So treat the book and its spine with respect. It needs to last a long, long time. We will all love you for it. And it will be one of the nicest gifts you can give all librarians, everywhere.
2. Promise to not use your library books as trivets. Here’s another funny thing, mylar covers (the little plastic covers we put on books) melt. The big melted hole in the mylar cover is usually a dead give away that you’ve been setting hot pans on your library books. Replacing the covers isn’t impossible, but usually they are glued on, which means we may tear the book when we replace it. So please, buy yourself a trivet or pot holder for Christmas. We’ll consider it a personal gift to the librarians.
3. Don’t use library DVDs or CDs as dinner plates, Frisbees, or other disk shaped items. We don’t mind the occasional fingerprint or even small scratch. Usually we can clean those off, or resurface the disk. But DVDs that are returned with spaghetti sauce on them, or mud, or paint, really get us wondering. Although spaghetti sauce and mud will wash off (we just create some really great stories about how it got there), the paint doesn’t. That means the DVD has to be replaced. So feel free to put the CDs and DVDs in the player, but as a Christmas present to librarians everywhere, please don’t use them as Frisbees, dinner plates, or shovels.
4. Buy yourself a book mark for Christmas instead of turning down the corners of the page to mark your place. There’s no doubt about it. Librarians are a persnickety lot. We like everything perfect. We like a place for everything and everything in its place. We like books to last and stay looking clean and new. Every time the corner of a page gets turned down, it makes a crease and weakens the page. Eventually the corner will tear off and the book, although still readable is less than pristine. Even though it’s an easy way to mark your page and it doesn’t seem to be doing much harm, it drives librarians nuts! We have loads of bookmarks that we will give you for free. You can get a bookmark with our hours, or one with a story courtesy of the Homer Writers’ group. We have bookmarks about OverDrive, the downloadable audio system, and book marks with animals on them. We have bookmarks from the summer reading program and lost and found bookmarks that were left in books. So get a bookmark for Christmas and don’t turn down the corners of the pages!
5. Take a vow to never crack the spine of another book. Books just aren’t made like they used to be. The pages aren’t sewn in. There’s no reinforcement other than glue. If you’re the first one to read it, it’s not going to lay flat, so you can eat dinner and read with no hands. Forcing the spine open so that the book lays flat cracks the glue, makes the pages fall out, and means the book will need to be replaced soon. Lately we have books falling apart after only five or six readings. But if it’s a copy of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, there are a lot more than six people who want to read it. So treat the book and its spine with respect. It needs to last a long, long time. We will all love you for it. And it will be one of the nicest gifts you can give all librarians, everywhere.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
A Library Halloween
She squeezed her coffee mug against her body, trying to keep her book bag on her shoulder as she twisted the key in the lock. The door had its own secret combination; push the key in while turning and simultaneously pulling the door toward you. It took two hands, but she didn’t want to set everything down on the wet step, so she balanced mug, lunch bag, and book bag against her body while turning the key. The coffee sloshed in the mug, as she struggled with the door, but miraculously kept from coming out and spilling down her nice yellow sweater. The door popped open. Taking her mug firmly in her hand, she walked through the door and kicked it closed behind her.
The library was totally empty and quiet. She smiled her shoulders relaxing. This was her favorite time of day, when she stood here all alone, just her and the books. They had the place all to themselves for these few hours before the library opened for business.
She walked into her office, set down the mug and book bag and clicked on her computer. The little fan inside the computer began to hum, like 1000 bees warming up for the day. She looked down at the payroll tax forms lying on her desk and sighed. Her least favorite job in the whole library, but there was no putting it off any longer. She sat down, now that the place was quiet and she had it all to herself, to get the job out of the way. She could think of a hundred jobs she’d rather be doing: purchasing books, processing books, planning programs, writing the newsletter, even shelving books, or straightening the continually messy and out of order shelves. Anything but the tax forms, the figures that needed to be done over and over, rechecked and recalculated till she had assured herself they were done right and ready to send in.
A clatter came from down in the basement. She turned her head toward the basement stairs and listened for a moment, cocking her head. When she first started working here, she’d go and investigate every bump and thump in the building. It was an eerie old building to be alone in. She’d open every closet, look in every storage area, checking to make sure she was totally alone. She’d gotten use to the old building with it’s creaks and thumps and now just stopped a minute to assure herself there was nothing unusually going on downstairs.
The elevator began to rumble and she could hear the mechanics of the machine gearing up down below the basement. It rumbled up from the downstairs, giving its characteristic ding, just before the elevator door opened outside her office. No one was inside, and the doors slowly closed again as the elevator rumbled back down. She’d been freaked out when she first started working in the building and had discovered how the elevator wandered the floors of the library of its own accord. Now it was just another quirk of the old building; regular and reassuring. She figured the machine had to get itself warmed up and moving in the morning, much like she did.
She turned back to the tax forms, but the sound of wheels rolling across the main reading room’s bare wood floor interrupted her. Now, that was decidedly not a normal sound. She pushed her chair back to investigate.
As she came into the room, she could see the handles of the book truck, over the top of the circulation desk. It was definitely rolling across the floor, but there was no one moving it.
She moved very slowly and quietly around the desk, hiding behind one of the pillars. She peeked around the corner at the rolling book cart. It seemed to be rolling by itself and then she saw him. He was about as big as the palm of her hand and he was giving the cart a push and then jumping on the leg to ride along until it ran out of momentum. His ears were long and flopped over like a dog’s. His face was a human’s in miniature. As he grinned, large pointy canines stuck out. He wore brown pants that were frayed around the bottoms, and a dirty shirt that seemed to be covered with dust.
She shook her head trying to clear her vision. The kobold caught sight of her and stared back. He grabbed a book off the cart and, carrying the book that was at least 5 times his size over his head, ran toward the New Books shelf. He started to slide the book between the others.
“Don’t do that,” she yelled racing toward the kobold. “It needs to be checked in first.” He might be a eird mythical creature, but this was her library and no one re-shelved books without checking them in!
The kobold laughed a high-pitched squeal and dropped the book, racing off toward another shelf. She picked up the book, and turned to see the tiny creature, grabbing books off the shelf and randomly placing them on the next shelf.
“No,” she said, racing after him, but he just laughed and darted away.
“Kobolds,” a chilly voice said from behind the desk, “the bane of every librarians’ existence; the source of all the missing, misshelved, and ‘re-shelved without being checked in’ books.”
She was the only person in the library. There shouldn’t be anyone standing behind her. So who was that talking? The kobold stared in the direction of the voice. He did not look happy. She wasn’t sure she wanted to come face to face with whoever could put that expression on the kobold’s face.
She turned slowly and gawked at the woman standing at the circulation desk. Her hair was in a bun, with a pencil sticking in the knot of hair. The pencil had a date stamper attached to the end, like libraries had used thirty years ago. The woman wore a high-necked white shirt, buttoned up the front, tucked neatly into a black skirt that reached midway down her calves. And she was decidedly translucent. The books on the shelf behind her were visible through her shirtwaist. A gray fog twirled and swirled within the woman’s silver outline. The ghost of librarians past looked down her nose at the kobold with obvious disdain.
“I’m amazed with all this technology,” the sweep of her hand took in the computers, DVDs, books on CD, “that you haven’t found a cure yet for Book Shelf Kobolds.”
The ghost turned at looked at the librarian. “I’m Miss Baldwin,” the ghost said, “what’s your name dear?”
Staring at the ghost, she caught a flash of color out of the corner of her eye. Something was rappelling down the bookshelf. The little figure landed on the floor near the kobold, who was still watching the ghost warily, books scattered on the floor around him. The new arrival was the same size as the kobold, dressed in brown pants, with a green tunic, and wide leather belt around his waist. He wore a red stocking cap on his head, and had pointed ears reminiscent of Orlando Bloom in “Lord of the Rings.”
“Ah, the library gnome,” the ghost murmured. “At least you haven’t lost him. I can’t imagine what your shelves would look like, if he wasn’t here.” She gave a little sniff as she ran her fingers along a row of books, checking their spine labels to see if they were in order. Her finger stopped as she pulled a book free and repositioned it on the shelf below.
The little gnome released himself from his rappelling gear and turned toward the kobold. He placed his fists on his hips and threw back his shoulders, striking a Superman pose, as he began to scold the kobold. He chattered like an angry chipmunk.
Grabbing the nearest book, the gnome checked the spine label and slipped it back onto the shelf. When he reached for the next one, the kobold jumped on him, pushing him away from the book. They rolled across the floor, wrestling with each other, landing on another book. The kobold jumped to his feet and grabbed the book by its cover, dragging it across the floor. The gnome reached for the book, grabbing hold of the back cover. They stood, the open book stretched between them, each tugging it in opposite directions.
“Stop,” she screamed rushing toward them. “Don’t tear the book!”
The kobold released the book, sending the red-capped gnome sliding across the floor. The gnome tossed the book aside and dove for the kobold again, the two tiny creatures tumbling across the floor.
She picked them each up by the scruff of the neck, holding them apart dangling between her thumb and forefinger. They continued to try to grab and kick each other as they dangled in the air, cursing each other with high-pitched screams that made no sense to her.
“Stop it,” she yelled. “No fighting.” Great she thought, staring at the two miscreants in her hands, who now hung dejectedly from her fingers, hanging their heads in what could only be little people embarrassment. I’m really losing it now. I’m breaking up fights between mythical creatures.
The ghost of Miss Baldwin hovered next to her. “They always were fighters those two, even in my day.” She looked around the library, new computers at the computer stations, the online catalog, books on CD lining the shelves, DVDs to check out covering a wall. “ Nothing’s really changed you know, ” the ghost smiled.
“It’s okay really dear, these things happen. It’s part of being a librarian.”
“These things don’t happen” she wanted to yell. “You don’t exist.”
But somehow at the moment, the ghost’s existence seemed more real than all the things she had to do on her to do list. It must be doing the taxes she thought. Or all the kids she had to tell to be quiet everyday. Or tracking down missing books. Or figuring how to squeeze one more program out of an already overloaded budget. Or maybe it was doing yet another craft involving glue and construction paper without gluing herself to everything in sight. She was losing her marbles; breaking up fights between a library gnome and a bookshelf kobold, taking advice from a long dead librarian. A vacation was definitely what she needed.
She turned back to look at the two tiny creatures in her hands, but they had disappeared. She glanced around the empty reading room, looking down each row of stacks, but no silvery ghost glimmered in any corner. She peaked under the circulation desk, but no floppy eared kobold, or pointy hatted gnome hid anywhere. She shook her head, as if clearing the happenings from her mind. Maybe she was hallucinating, but the quiet of the building settled around her. She headed back to her office, but as she walked past the children’s room she remembered story hour was today. She’d better get the craft together. She squared her shoulders and headed into the children’s room.
She wheeled the art cart to one of the small round tables and sat down on the child-sized chair. There was something about sitting in children’s furniture that always felt secure. She pulled a pair of small blunt nosed scissors, designed for children’s hands, some construction paper and glue out of the cart and began to cut out shapes. She was the least crafty person around. A craft needed to be something simple, something she could do without having to go home and take Valium afterwards.
She cut out round circles of paper and began feeling calmer. Construction paper and scissors always had that affect on her. Forget that her end product never really resembled anything. It was the act of creating it that mattered. It soothed her.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and without turning her head saw the gnome climb the art cart. He picked up a pair of scissors, bigger than he was, and holding them carefully over his head jumped onto the table. He began to cut out different shapes in an assortment of colors, a few snips of his scissors producing a wide range of forms.
She picked up the glue and began to make her sample. The glue came out in a big glob and ran off the construction paper, falling on the table. She placed the cut out on the center of the paper. Glue squirted out from under the edges getting on her fingers as she patted the circle into place. Covered with glue now, she wiped up the glob of glue from the table with one of her fingers and painted it on a piece of green paper. Her fingers stuck to the paper. She shook her hand, but the paper refused to come loose. Her husband was right. They should have never let her out of kindergarten. Cutting and pasting was beyond her.
The kobold chose that moment to reappear, jumping onto the table and grabbing the scissors from the gnome. The two of them began pulling on the scissors, screaming their high-pitched screams at each other.
“Stop it,” she yelled and even shocked herself with the loudness of her voice echoing through the empty library. The kobold and gnome stood staring at her.
“Now, now dear,” the ghost materialized next to her. “You mustn’t raise your voice in the library.”
She dropped her head into her hands and realized she’d glued her hands to her hair. Pulling her head slowly back, strands of hair stuck to her fingers. Little pieces of construction paper dangled from her bangs, swinging in front of her eyes. Tears began to roll down her face.
The ghost shimmered in front of her. The kobold stood perfectly still, for once neither hiding, running, jumping, or screaming. The gnome walked over to her hand and patted her fingers. Climbing up her arm, he walked across her shoulder and reached up to pat her cheek, his small hand only reaching the underside of her jaw.
The ghost of Miss Baldwin took the pencil out of the bun and in a perfect arch, brought the end that bore the date stamp down onto the pieces of paper scattered across the table. She methodically began stamping the date on the little bits of construction paper.
“I know honey,” she said. “It’s not easy. But you’re the Librarian.” The ghost studied her pencil for a moment and then slipped the cool yellow number two pencil behind the librarian’s ear. “Now put the glue away. Wash your hands. Straighten your cape and get back out there. You’re the Librarian and its Halloween.”
The library was totally empty and quiet. She smiled her shoulders relaxing. This was her favorite time of day, when she stood here all alone, just her and the books. They had the place all to themselves for these few hours before the library opened for business.
She walked into her office, set down the mug and book bag and clicked on her computer. The little fan inside the computer began to hum, like 1000 bees warming up for the day. She looked down at the payroll tax forms lying on her desk and sighed. Her least favorite job in the whole library, but there was no putting it off any longer. She sat down, now that the place was quiet and she had it all to herself, to get the job out of the way. She could think of a hundred jobs she’d rather be doing: purchasing books, processing books, planning programs, writing the newsletter, even shelving books, or straightening the continually messy and out of order shelves. Anything but the tax forms, the figures that needed to be done over and over, rechecked and recalculated till she had assured herself they were done right and ready to send in.
A clatter came from down in the basement. She turned her head toward the basement stairs and listened for a moment, cocking her head. When she first started working here, she’d go and investigate every bump and thump in the building. It was an eerie old building to be alone in. She’d open every closet, look in every storage area, checking to make sure she was totally alone. She’d gotten use to the old building with it’s creaks and thumps and now just stopped a minute to assure herself there was nothing unusually going on downstairs.
The elevator began to rumble and she could hear the mechanics of the machine gearing up down below the basement. It rumbled up from the downstairs, giving its characteristic ding, just before the elevator door opened outside her office. No one was inside, and the doors slowly closed again as the elevator rumbled back down. She’d been freaked out when she first started working in the building and had discovered how the elevator wandered the floors of the library of its own accord. Now it was just another quirk of the old building; regular and reassuring. She figured the machine had to get itself warmed up and moving in the morning, much like she did.
She turned back to the tax forms, but the sound of wheels rolling across the main reading room’s bare wood floor interrupted her. Now, that was decidedly not a normal sound. She pushed her chair back to investigate.
As she came into the room, she could see the handles of the book truck, over the top of the circulation desk. It was definitely rolling across the floor, but there was no one moving it.
She moved very slowly and quietly around the desk, hiding behind one of the pillars. She peeked around the corner at the rolling book cart. It seemed to be rolling by itself and then she saw him. He was about as big as the palm of her hand and he was giving the cart a push and then jumping on the leg to ride along until it ran out of momentum. His ears were long and flopped over like a dog’s. His face was a human’s in miniature. As he grinned, large pointy canines stuck out. He wore brown pants that were frayed around the bottoms, and a dirty shirt that seemed to be covered with dust.
She shook her head trying to clear her vision. The kobold caught sight of her and stared back. He grabbed a book off the cart and, carrying the book that was at least 5 times his size over his head, ran toward the New Books shelf. He started to slide the book between the others.
“Don’t do that,” she yelled racing toward the kobold. “It needs to be checked in first.” He might be a eird mythical creature, but this was her library and no one re-shelved books without checking them in!
The kobold laughed a high-pitched squeal and dropped the book, racing off toward another shelf. She picked up the book, and turned to see the tiny creature, grabbing books off the shelf and randomly placing them on the next shelf.
“No,” she said, racing after him, but he just laughed and darted away.
“Kobolds,” a chilly voice said from behind the desk, “the bane of every librarians’ existence; the source of all the missing, misshelved, and ‘re-shelved without being checked in’ books.”
She was the only person in the library. There shouldn’t be anyone standing behind her. So who was that talking? The kobold stared in the direction of the voice. He did not look happy. She wasn’t sure she wanted to come face to face with whoever could put that expression on the kobold’s face.
She turned slowly and gawked at the woman standing at the circulation desk. Her hair was in a bun, with a pencil sticking in the knot of hair. The pencil had a date stamper attached to the end, like libraries had used thirty years ago. The woman wore a high-necked white shirt, buttoned up the front, tucked neatly into a black skirt that reached midway down her calves. And she was decidedly translucent. The books on the shelf behind her were visible through her shirtwaist. A gray fog twirled and swirled within the woman’s silver outline. The ghost of librarians past looked down her nose at the kobold with obvious disdain.
“I’m amazed with all this technology,” the sweep of her hand took in the computers, DVDs, books on CD, “that you haven’t found a cure yet for Book Shelf Kobolds.”
The ghost turned at looked at the librarian. “I’m Miss Baldwin,” the ghost said, “what’s your name dear?”
Staring at the ghost, she caught a flash of color out of the corner of her eye. Something was rappelling down the bookshelf. The little figure landed on the floor near the kobold, who was still watching the ghost warily, books scattered on the floor around him. The new arrival was the same size as the kobold, dressed in brown pants, with a green tunic, and wide leather belt around his waist. He wore a red stocking cap on his head, and had pointed ears reminiscent of Orlando Bloom in “Lord of the Rings.”
“Ah, the library gnome,” the ghost murmured. “At least you haven’t lost him. I can’t imagine what your shelves would look like, if he wasn’t here.” She gave a little sniff as she ran her fingers along a row of books, checking their spine labels to see if they were in order. Her finger stopped as she pulled a book free and repositioned it on the shelf below.
The little gnome released himself from his rappelling gear and turned toward the kobold. He placed his fists on his hips and threw back his shoulders, striking a Superman pose, as he began to scold the kobold. He chattered like an angry chipmunk.
Grabbing the nearest book, the gnome checked the spine label and slipped it back onto the shelf. When he reached for the next one, the kobold jumped on him, pushing him away from the book. They rolled across the floor, wrestling with each other, landing on another book. The kobold jumped to his feet and grabbed the book by its cover, dragging it across the floor. The gnome reached for the book, grabbing hold of the back cover. They stood, the open book stretched between them, each tugging it in opposite directions.
“Stop,” she screamed rushing toward them. “Don’t tear the book!”
The kobold released the book, sending the red-capped gnome sliding across the floor. The gnome tossed the book aside and dove for the kobold again, the two tiny creatures tumbling across the floor.
She picked them each up by the scruff of the neck, holding them apart dangling between her thumb and forefinger. They continued to try to grab and kick each other as they dangled in the air, cursing each other with high-pitched screams that made no sense to her.
“Stop it,” she yelled. “No fighting.” Great she thought, staring at the two miscreants in her hands, who now hung dejectedly from her fingers, hanging their heads in what could only be little people embarrassment. I’m really losing it now. I’m breaking up fights between mythical creatures.
The ghost of Miss Baldwin hovered next to her. “They always were fighters those two, even in my day.” She looked around the library, new computers at the computer stations, the online catalog, books on CD lining the shelves, DVDs to check out covering a wall. “ Nothing’s really changed you know, ” the ghost smiled.
“It’s okay really dear, these things happen. It’s part of being a librarian.”
“These things don’t happen” she wanted to yell. “You don’t exist.”
But somehow at the moment, the ghost’s existence seemed more real than all the things she had to do on her to do list. It must be doing the taxes she thought. Or all the kids she had to tell to be quiet everyday. Or tracking down missing books. Or figuring how to squeeze one more program out of an already overloaded budget. Or maybe it was doing yet another craft involving glue and construction paper without gluing herself to everything in sight. She was losing her marbles; breaking up fights between a library gnome and a bookshelf kobold, taking advice from a long dead librarian. A vacation was definitely what she needed.
She turned back to look at the two tiny creatures in her hands, but they had disappeared. She glanced around the empty reading room, looking down each row of stacks, but no silvery ghost glimmered in any corner. She peaked under the circulation desk, but no floppy eared kobold, or pointy hatted gnome hid anywhere. She shook her head, as if clearing the happenings from her mind. Maybe she was hallucinating, but the quiet of the building settled around her. She headed back to her office, but as she walked past the children’s room she remembered story hour was today. She’d better get the craft together. She squared her shoulders and headed into the children’s room.
She wheeled the art cart to one of the small round tables and sat down on the child-sized chair. There was something about sitting in children’s furniture that always felt secure. She pulled a pair of small blunt nosed scissors, designed for children’s hands, some construction paper and glue out of the cart and began to cut out shapes. She was the least crafty person around. A craft needed to be something simple, something she could do without having to go home and take Valium afterwards.
She cut out round circles of paper and began feeling calmer. Construction paper and scissors always had that affect on her. Forget that her end product never really resembled anything. It was the act of creating it that mattered. It soothed her.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and without turning her head saw the gnome climb the art cart. He picked up a pair of scissors, bigger than he was, and holding them carefully over his head jumped onto the table. He began to cut out different shapes in an assortment of colors, a few snips of his scissors producing a wide range of forms.
She picked up the glue and began to make her sample. The glue came out in a big glob and ran off the construction paper, falling on the table. She placed the cut out on the center of the paper. Glue squirted out from under the edges getting on her fingers as she patted the circle into place. Covered with glue now, she wiped up the glob of glue from the table with one of her fingers and painted it on a piece of green paper. Her fingers stuck to the paper. She shook her hand, but the paper refused to come loose. Her husband was right. They should have never let her out of kindergarten. Cutting and pasting was beyond her.
The kobold chose that moment to reappear, jumping onto the table and grabbing the scissors from the gnome. The two of them began pulling on the scissors, screaming their high-pitched screams at each other.
“Stop it,” she yelled and even shocked herself with the loudness of her voice echoing through the empty library. The kobold and gnome stood staring at her.
“Now, now dear,” the ghost materialized next to her. “You mustn’t raise your voice in the library.”
She dropped her head into her hands and realized she’d glued her hands to her hair. Pulling her head slowly back, strands of hair stuck to her fingers. Little pieces of construction paper dangled from her bangs, swinging in front of her eyes. Tears began to roll down her face.
The ghost shimmered in front of her. The kobold stood perfectly still, for once neither hiding, running, jumping, or screaming. The gnome walked over to her hand and patted her fingers. Climbing up her arm, he walked across her shoulder and reached up to pat her cheek, his small hand only reaching the underside of her jaw.
The ghost of Miss Baldwin took the pencil out of the bun and in a perfect arch, brought the end that bore the date stamp down onto the pieces of paper scattered across the table. She methodically began stamping the date on the little bits of construction paper.
“I know honey,” she said. “It’s not easy. But you’re the Librarian.” The ghost studied her pencil for a moment and then slipped the cool yellow number two pencil behind the librarian’s ear. “Now put the glue away. Wash your hands. Straighten your cape and get back out there. You’re the Librarian and its Halloween.”
Monday, September 13, 2010
When you feel like a good cry
Sometimes I think, reading a book about someone’s loss and grief is like poking my tongue in a cavity. I know it’s going to hurt, but I can’t stop myself from doing it. I think, reading about grief, is also reading about love. I want that vicarious experience of a love that makes loss so painful and poignant. And I also want the reassurance that loss can be survived. In her memoir, Let’s Take the Long Way Home, Gail Caldwell delivers all that and more. She tells the tale of her life changing friendship with fellow writer, Caroline Knapp. And then when Caroline dies of lung cancer at the age of 42, Caldwell takes us along on her journey through the barren land of grief.
Gail and Caroline were introduced by their dog trainer. Their friendship, based on a love of dogs, the writing life, and their shared history of alcoholism, was a once in a lifetime relationship that grounded and stretched them both. Grieving Caroline took Caldwell through territory for which she had no map. Caldwell writes, “The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course. Until Caroline died I had belonged to the other world, the place of innocence and linear expectations, were I thought grief was a simple, wrenching realm of sadness and longing that gradually receded. What that definition left out was the body blow that loss inflicts, as well as the temporary madness, and a range of less straight forward emotions shocking in their intensity.” (p. 150)
Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a moving story of two women’s friendship, but it’s more than that. Gail Caldwell’s story chronicles the struggle of two women to carve out their own lives. It tells of the power of the human-canine relationship and the way dogs draw people together. Most of all it tells of living through the desolate landscape of grief.
A few years ago, I read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, another moving memoir about loss. The book begins with Didion and her husband’s return from the hospital where their adult daughter was unconscious in the intensive care unit. As they sat at their dining room table that evening, Didion’s husband had a heart attack. He didn’t live to make it to the hospital. Didion writes of her year following his death, her year of grieving for her husband, while trying to cope with her daughter’s life threatening illness. The title comes from Didion’s realization that grief took her to a world where she wasn’t always sure what was real and what wasn’t, where she couldn’t always remember whether her husband was truly gone or not. Her writing is so intense, so deep, that reading it felt like I was experiencing the same confusion and uncertainity that Didion herself lived through. Didion’s magical thinking of grief comes alive with her very words.
Yet, friends and lovers aren’t the only things we grieve. Phillip Simmons’ book Learning to Fall tells the story of Simmon’s diagnosis with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Simmons, a healthy young man with small children, faced the loss of his ability to walk, to carry his children, and finally to breathe on his own. He confronted losing the dream of a future, of watching his children grow up. And finally he grieved the loss of his own life, watching his days grow short as his body failed him. It’s a grief of a different order, told powerfully by a man who struggled to find joy and meaning in his diminishing days and body. Through loss, he wrote, he learned “the art of living.”
As I read Didion’s book, often crying, Bruce asked me why I was reading it. It’s hard to explain, how something so sad, can also be uplifting. Even though these books aren’t easy reads, they all left me hopeful. Life can be hard and painful, but grief somehow says we are alive, we loved well and we can learn the “art of living” as Simmons calls it. For a sad, yet hopeful read, pick up one of these books. But keep a box of tissues handy.
Gail and Caroline were introduced by their dog trainer. Their friendship, based on a love of dogs, the writing life, and their shared history of alcoholism, was a once in a lifetime relationship that grounded and stretched them both. Grieving Caroline took Caldwell through territory for which she had no map. Caldwell writes, “The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course. Until Caroline died I had belonged to the other world, the place of innocence and linear expectations, were I thought grief was a simple, wrenching realm of sadness and longing that gradually receded. What that definition left out was the body blow that loss inflicts, as well as the temporary madness, and a range of less straight forward emotions shocking in their intensity.” (p. 150)
Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a moving story of two women’s friendship, but it’s more than that. Gail Caldwell’s story chronicles the struggle of two women to carve out their own lives. It tells of the power of the human-canine relationship and the way dogs draw people together. Most of all it tells of living through the desolate landscape of grief.
A few years ago, I read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, another moving memoir about loss. The book begins with Didion and her husband’s return from the hospital where their adult daughter was unconscious in the intensive care unit. As they sat at their dining room table that evening, Didion’s husband had a heart attack. He didn’t live to make it to the hospital. Didion writes of her year following his death, her year of grieving for her husband, while trying to cope with her daughter’s life threatening illness. The title comes from Didion’s realization that grief took her to a world where she wasn’t always sure what was real and what wasn’t, where she couldn’t always remember whether her husband was truly gone or not. Her writing is so intense, so deep, that reading it felt like I was experiencing the same confusion and uncertainity that Didion herself lived through. Didion’s magical thinking of grief comes alive with her very words.
Yet, friends and lovers aren’t the only things we grieve. Phillip Simmons’ book Learning to Fall tells the story of Simmon’s diagnosis with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Simmons, a healthy young man with small children, faced the loss of his ability to walk, to carry his children, and finally to breathe on his own. He confronted losing the dream of a future, of watching his children grow up. And finally he grieved the loss of his own life, watching his days grow short as his body failed him. It’s a grief of a different order, told powerfully by a man who struggled to find joy and meaning in his diminishing days and body. Through loss, he wrote, he learned “the art of living.”
As I read Didion’s book, often crying, Bruce asked me why I was reading it. It’s hard to explain, how something so sad, can also be uplifting. Even though these books aren’t easy reads, they all left me hopeful. Life can be hard and painful, but grief somehow says we are alive, we loved well and we can learn the “art of living” as Simmons calls it. For a sad, yet hopeful read, pick up one of these books. But keep a box of tissues handy.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Book Marks
I keep threatening to write a blog about the top ten ways to annoy the librarian, but I'm trying to hide my true personality as much as possible. I'll let you in on one of them though - it's turning down the corners of the page to mark your place. To all of you who do that, I just have one question - don't you know that library books are sacred? And that the belong to everyone? (Okay, that's two questions.) So, please, get a book mark to mark your place. It makes the books last longer and it will keep me from having a stroke!
In an effort to help you break your page creasing habits, we've got help and it comes from one of the best kept secrets in Homer - The Homer Writers’ Group! This group of fun loving writers is always looking for ways to encourage ourselves to write. Writing is hard work and most of us really do want someone to read our stuff. That’s why the Homer Writers’ Group started “Book Mark Stories.” We’re writing short stories that will fit on a book mark. So far we have four to choose from. The Mark of the Book by Lynn Olcott, Book Marks by Shannon Maxson, and two different stories entitled It’s a Book, Mark, one by Jane Richardson and one by Priscilla Berggren-Thomas.
If you want your very own collectible book mark short story by a member of the Homer Writers’ Group, or you want to break your habit of creasing library book pages and contribute to the better health of the librarian, stop by the library and pick up a bookmark.
In an effort to help you break your page creasing habits, we've got help and it comes from one of the best kept secrets in Homer - The Homer Writers’ Group! This group of fun loving writers is always looking for ways to encourage ourselves to write. Writing is hard work and most of us really do want someone to read our stuff. That’s why the Homer Writers’ Group started “Book Mark Stories.” We’re writing short stories that will fit on a book mark. So far we have four to choose from. The Mark of the Book by Lynn Olcott, Book Marks by Shannon Maxson, and two different stories entitled It’s a Book, Mark, one by Jane Richardson and one by Priscilla Berggren-Thomas.
If you want your very own collectible book mark short story by a member of the Homer Writers’ Group, or you want to break your habit of creasing library book pages and contribute to the better health of the librarian, stop by the library and pick up a bookmark.
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