My Dream Library

"What's your dream library?" 
 The Astral Library, Kate Quinn

Last week I read a brilliant, stunning novel, The Astral Library, by Kate Quinn. At its heart, it is about the role that libraries have played for centuries worldwide. "A library [...] is a sanctuary," pronounces Alix, the protagonist of the story. 

E. B. White felt similarly. He wrote, "[A] library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book."

Andy White would totally be at home in the Astral Library. Heck, he may already be living there! 

In the course of the story, Alix poses a question to someone: "What's your dream library?"

I didn't hesitate when I read that line. My dream library? Our town's Carnegie Library, no longer the public library, but still a library in that our county law library is located in the front part of the main floor. And every month, for several hours, I go into that building and recreate in my mind my dream library.

My dream library 

I have written before about the importance and meaning of this library in my childhood and youth. It was my sanctuary, it was where I could go, like White wrote, when I needed boosting and direction. It was where I was at home.

As I wrote before, the librarians got to know me as such a summertime regular that when I arrived before it officially opened, they would let me in early to browse. And I was allowed to leave the confines of the children's library, which housed everything from picture books to what would now be classified as middle school selections, both fiction and nonfiction, before I completed 4th grade, a privilege granted to no one else I knew.

(Of course, I never ever got to go into the secret secret places, like up the very narrow stair to the storage area. I do now.) 

Out the window from the second floor; yes, that's the Justice Bus parked out front! 

About a decade ago, our county commissioners, who were then using the Carnegie as their offices and hearing rooms, did a spectacular renovation of the building. They restored the original interior woodwork and restored and reopened a magnificent skylight over the lobby, one that was hidden behind a drop ceiling in my day. So it is a different space than when I was young, but the essence of its library-ness is still there.

Our November Justice Bus was the first Thursday of this month. I always go early to set up the food table and make sure that Judy, my friend, boon companion, and the law librarian, doesn't need any other prep done. The food table is in the former children's library, exactly where the nonfiction shelves lined the back wall. When I am advising, I often am in that same room, near the east front windows where the picture books and elementary age fiction were shelved. While I advised a client at the November Bus, her very young son (3) was sprawled on the floor with some toys in the exact area where the picture books would have been (on low shelves, of course) and where the children's librarian of yore would have read books aloud to little ones. Just the sight of a small child in that space triggered my hand to my heart.

It was a half mile from my childhood home to the Carnegie, a path I walked so often that I did not have to watch the sidewalk and could read while I walked, looking up only at street crossings. It is a half mile from our home now to the Carnegie, although now I have to watch the sidewalk so I do not trip. Coincidence that it is the same distance? Maybe.

My good friend Brandon showed up at an earlier Justice Bus to shoot some photos with an old camera I had given him. He knows the story of my walking to the library all the time, of the librarians letting me in early. He took a few shots of me standing as we talked about the camera. "Take one of me sitting on the steps waiting to be let in," I said.

And Brandon did.

On the steps of my dream library. Photo by friend and colleague Brandon Feller;
you can see more of his superb work on Instagram: @framesandgrainsphotography

My dream library? The one I go to each month. It is still a library, albeit not the library I grew up with, but a library all the same.

And when I am there, I am back in that magical space, my long ago sanctuary.