Connections

I have to confess that, as an avid read, I have not had a library card for years.  In the beginning it was the damn fines.  In the 1960's the late fees more than doubled from 2 cents per day per book to a whopping 5 cents per day per book.  There were times I forfeited my card as I simply couldn't afford to pay the fines.  I did keep an eye on library news though as there was often a day where you could simply return your books, no questions asked, no fines assessed.  If you missed the day, you were hooped.

There is also that other thing where I like to eat when I'm reading.  Libraries are not keen on their books coming back with chocolate and/or peanut butter splotches on the pages.  They also don't love dog-eared pages and notes in the columns (even if they are erased until the page starts shedding).  

I have many friends who read and are willing to share, but I am also careful about that.  I rarely borrowed from my friend Ingrid even though the books she read were inspiring.  Ingrid's books were in tip-top shape, hardly a spine cracked.  Not borrowing material for the likes of me!

A few weeks ago I was out for a walk and passed our local public library.  I went in and got myself a library card.  It sat in my wallet for a while but after Christmas I decided it was time to stop buying ALL the books I wanted and start checking some out from the library. This is not the library of the olden days.  Once you have a card there is very little need to interact with anyone at all.  This goes against everything I remember about the library.  Hi Terrill, you know that new book by. . . do you have it in and where would I find it?  She would tell me that Fran was still reading it but it should be back next Thursday.  I could put my name in a draw for any number of fund-raising shenanigans and catch up on the all of the local news.  I was never in that library where there wasn't a friendly, welcoming conversation to greet you at the door. I have not been coming to this particular library long enough to know if they even have a 'Crackles' type mascot to pique your curiosity and engage the young ones.

Once I decided which of my "to be read' books I wanted to buy and which I would sign out, I headed to the library.  I did my search online at a computer, scanned the shelves, signed those books out at a computer and headed to a quiet corner to do a bit of writing before I headed home.  I had not interacted with one person.  No one was curious about my reads.  That is, until Tony showed up.

Tony passed by my table and glanced down at the two books I had chosen.  He asked if he could take a picture of each title with his phone and then asked me why I had picked those particular books.  I had just finished reading The Correspondent (by Virginia Evans) and in her book she mentioned letter writing with the author Joan Didion.  While the Correspondent is a novel, the title character talks about books she has loved and authors she has written to.  More than once she mentioned The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion so this was one of the books I had on my library list.  As I was looking for this book I came across another book written by a favourite author of mine, Erica Bauermeister.  I have enjoyed her novels but her book, House Lessons - Renovating a Life, was non-fiction so I picked it up as well.  Tony had a few questions and I enjoyed the conversation.  I enjoyed his curiosity and I enjoyed the reflective thinking involved in why I had chosen those two particular books.

My disappointment at the lack of human interaction  was taken care of by a sauntering 'older man' and my judgement of the role of the public library was softened.  Thanks for that, Tony!  

I am planning on becoming a regular patron (if I can keep my messes off of the pages).  I don't know the fine situation any more but now that I am retired I have no excuses for not adhering to the due dates.  Perhaps in time I will learn the ebb and flow of this new place and start to recognize, and maybe even become, one of the regulars.  Here's hoping.

I Had A Dream. . . oh no, hold on a minute, that wasn't me.

 

Look at this girl.  Look at that smile.  

I believe I was a happy child.  I did get in trouble, some would say 'a lot'.  For my part, in looking back, I think I didn't get in enough trouble, at least not the kind that I could look back on now and say, "Wow, that was fun!"  I wasn't perfect but when I think of myself as a child I think of someone who wanted to be happy.  Wanted to laugh.  Wanted to run and play and be 'just as good as the boys'.  But I never was a dreamer, at least not a dreamer with an eye to the future.  Never.

Really, at the ripe old age of 71 I can think of only two dreams that mattered to me.  The first was family. I wanted a family.  I always knew this.  And second, when we moved away from the Comox Valley, for the next 44 years, I wanted to go home.  Two dreams.  Good things happened to me along the way but not because I had vision or dreams or goals.  They just happened. And I embraced them, but I don't take credit for those riches that found me rather than the other way around.

I didn't dream about travelling the world, and yet I had the opportunity to do just that.  I didn't dream of owning a beautiful home across from the ocean, and yet, here I am.  I never dreamed about getting a university degree, never mind a masters degree.  I worked had at those things and they happened.  My high school teachers would be astounded that I became a teacher at all, never mind a counsellor, a vice principal and a principal and that I would teach Kindergarten through Grade 12 in my 25 years of teaching.  I believe all of these dreams were driven by others.  I was happy to go along for the ride but I would never have dreamed any of them possible, if in fact I had dreamed at all.

But, at this juncture in my life, I wish I would have had more dreams for my own sense of self.  I'm not sure how dreamers are born.  I mean the real dreamers, the ones with lifelong goals of 'becoming', of being a musician or an artist or a teacher or a professional athlete.  I am thinking of people who felt a burning desire within themselves to 'become'.  Or people who recognized their own value, their own gifts, their own sense of self.

So here I am at 71, wondering who and what I really want to be.  When I look in the mirror I see a woman who just 'went along'.  Many of the people I became along the way happened because of someone else's vision of who/what I could be.  I never once, over all the years, sat down and thought about what I REALLY wanted.  I was surprised, no shocked, when I found an artist and poet within me in my early 40's.  I wish I had known her sooner.  My young self would be surprised, and shocked, that my body has become a daily challenge for me.  I was young and fit and athletic and competitive. I look back on that body that could do anything I asked of it and I miss it.  I have always judged people who stop and look in every mirror and every store window, checking their hair, their face, their clothes, their 'presence'.  I always thought them vain but as I age I wish I would have spent more time looking back at the woman in the mirror.  More time asking her, "What is it you want?   Who is it you want to be?"

But it is not too late.  So here I am, desperately (yes desperately) wondering how to 'be', who to 'be'.  And a list is emerging, While I was never a dreamer I have become a master of 'the list'.  I think of lists as thought organizers, place markers, a long way from a dream, but at least a goal post to aim for.  

I want my final pictures to reflect that little girl at the top of the page, to inspire those left behind to say, "Look at that old woman.  Look at that smile."  How's that for a 'dream'?