Hymn of Disappearance

Libraries are churches.  They are tornado shelters.  They are not-quite fallout bunkers.

When I am scared, panicked, or lacking in the faith required to continue, it is where I find myself.  In any country, in any city, in any language.  The feeling is distinct from that of bookstores: There is no selling happening, here.   It is sharing, loaning, borrowing.  Questions are created with three times the speed as they are answered.  My pulse quickens at how much information and beauty exits under one roof. There are posters encouraging people to read, and to learn.  The phrase "life long learner", "the people's university",  and "right to privacy" are common place.

As a child, I would dive into my curiosities with nothing more than a slight blush as I nabbed a title from its place in the Dewey System.

Ghosts, the occult, dreams in the 100s. Religion in the 200s. The arts in the 700s. Literature, poetry and theater live in the 800s. Nothing else mattered to me, although I was vaguely aware that technology was in the 600s.

100, 200, 700, 800.

Over the years, these numbers have served as my emergency contact information.  They have replaced the memorized phone number of parents and neighbors. They have stood in for crisis lines, prayer circles, and the emergency pull chains one finds dangling from the ceiling of hospital-room bathrooms.

In times of distress, I look for the icon for LIBRARY (block person reading a book), walk directly into their doors, and stand in front of these very ranges of numbers.  In doing so, I know that something will salve me.

Change my mind.

Distract me.

Engage me.

Intrigue me enough to shake what is haunting me, or to give me lesson enough simply to understand it's beauty.



-k.