Thoughts Amongst The Shelves

There is something deliciously forbidden about a library. Sounds crazy, no? I'm sitting in a library in Somewhere, USA. The building holds the tell-tale signs of 1960's architecture. There is a main reading area with dim lights to illuminate the work of writers, readers, and fussy teenagers whose parents dragged them to the dreaded building. To the left, there is a wall of doorways, one right after the other, leading into one big section for the shelves. On the right side, a wall of tiny, narrow windows that eventually culminate into a children's section, closed off with a dark, heavy door. Everything about this place screams "Mystery!" Like the pages of a Gothic novel.

Although this library isn't far from my home, it's in a different city, and I can be anyone I like, here. A writer, a mother, a movie star, or someone's cousin just visiting for the summer. Who knows what these people think! And the best part is that it doesn't matter.

Places like libraries make me think about suppressed feelings and desires in life. No talking! Be quiet! Whisper! Whisper! Whisper! I glide along the dark, shadowy shelves and run my fingers over the spines of book, after book, after book. This author is from Thailand that one is from Chile, and I--I am here seeing, touching, reading the work of authors I will never meet. Yet, their work influences me. Frustrates me, makes me cry, bores me, makes me think wild thoughts. Words are powerful things. I think of all the forbidden books tucked discreetly into place--alphabetical--pretending they belong. Just begging to cast their spell on someone, perhaps me.

The hum of the fluorescent lights create a white noise, but I fear if I were to stay here too long, it would drive me mad. I imagine the librarians are sick of questions. Sick of staying in a cool, dimly lit fortress of a building with its' cave-like hums and drips and unpleasant visitors. Or maybe, like me, it intrigues them. Perhaps the whispers of ancient words in crumbling books draws them too. All I know is that a storm is coming, and I should be on my way.

A Summer Snapshot

This blog is a portion from a journal entry:
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I'm sitting on the dock at a friend's lake, and I can't believe how beautiful it is here. This is my third time out here and I am still awestruck. The sky is filled with purple-gray clouds ripe with rain. Somehow the insects don't seem to mind; they just keep buzzing and humming and skating across the black mirror lake. Frogs are croaking and just over my right shoulder, I hear a bird calling louder than the evening symphony.

My first time here I couldn't seem to place one of the sounds that seemed so prevalent, but now, as I sit here with my feet causing gentle ripples in the cool water, I realize what it is. It is the sound of nature absent of cars or planes, or even voices. The only man-made sounds are the scratch of my favorite black pen across my journal...a book filled with hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations. How strange to be part of a world that has so few cares.

I look across the slick wet surface of the lake and I am surrounded by wilderness. Not the kind that lost men dread--where the elements are cruel. But rather a wild wilderness of graceful flowers and rugged shrubbery. Beauty and strength. Just behind me a bushes of unripened blackberries are nurtured among the briars. My leg hold the tell-tale signs of their existence.

The moon looks down upon me as the sun sets leaving a brilliant array of stained glass clouds. The moon sees everything, and I am reminded that I have "miles to go before I sleep."