Years ago, my friend Elvispope moved to New York City. I talked to him after his first week there and asked how it was going. He said that he had done this and that, and that he had immediately obtained a library card.
When I was a kid the library was a second home. It may have actually been a first home, some of the time. Amid the raging chaos in my young home life, the library was a safe place, a warm place, an inviting place. And it was filled to the rafters with books, of course. My parents were readers, and the importance of literacy was instilled in me at a very young age.
I would go to the library and seemingly spend entire days there, from opening time to closing time. It was across the street from the elementary school and the front double doors opened at an angle to the street corner. I think the doors were a worn brown and the building was an older-style beige stucco. I suspect it was built in the 1920s, it had that “old enough to be old but once was new and beautiful” look.
Inside there were two wings, and in one of those wings sat a claw foot bathtub. It had been painted blue on the outside, while still white on the inside, with a wooden mast propped through the drain hole, and a small white canvas sail rigged to a thin boom. Yes, it was a sailing bathtub! And it was filled with pillows and stuffed animals and various soft and cushion-like things.
I was the captain of that vessel many a day, the sail rustling above me as I lay there on the soft stuff and read stacks and stacks of books. I’d get up occasionally to get a new book or to use the bathroom. There was a whole series of mystery books where the answer to the puzzle was written reversed and backwards at the end; I would carry the books into the bathroom to read them through the mirror.
I don’t remember the exact details of my comings and goings; whether I rode my bike (which was likely the case) or walked. I’m not sure if I was there after school or just on weekends. I do know that while it provided comfort and a lot of learning, the library was also a place to escape and hide from the difficulties of my reality. Everything has mixed blessings, I suppose. There was a lot of burden in my young life; someone had to take care of things around the house when those who were tasked with the job couldn’t be relied upon to perform, or even to show up. But for awhile on some days, I had a time and a place to be the captain of my imagination and to feel a little bit safer.
A few days ago a friend and I were out for a walk, talking and enjoying a crisp clear afternoon. We stopped at the beautiful SF Main Library; she was picking up a book that was on hold for her, so she could take it home and read it with her partner (I think it’s unbelievably cute that they read together). The library’s first floor was recently remodeled and she showed it off to me with barely contained excitement.
Over the years, as my life and work have dictated my digital existence, I haven’t been much of a library patron; I feel sort of ashamed to admit that. I’ve bought umpteen zillion books of my own, and given away most of them to keep my library from getting as big as the public one. I love books and I have to remember that I don’t need to own every book that catches my fancy, that I can read them and let them move on to the next person.
Or I can borrow them from this amazing library here in my amazing city. I was impressed by the automated checkout, the email notifications when books are due, and how much cool stuff they have.
I’d love to say that I checked out War and Peace and read it clean in an evening; I didn’t. I borrowed some DVDs, including the first season of Taxi. I hadn’t seen it in years, and I don’t know if I ever saw the first episode before (it’s brilliant).
Taxi was on TV at night back then (the theme, “Angela,” was the first song I ever had recorded on a cassette tape), back in those early days, when I’d come home from reading in my bathtub sailboat, check on the apartment, make sure everyone was accounted for and hope that I’d have chances to get back there again on other days, during the calms between the storms.
