Epic of Peace, The Library Smelling of Old Books...Thank you to the angels.

[mixie]

I have decided to share some of my Facebook notes with you all.   It's a form of "essay" writing and I'm trying to push myself to do it more often.  This is one that many people liked.

When I was a child I used to be awake this early.   I had created a strategy of switching the hours of my days so that I'd arise before dawn and sleep after school  to avoid dealing with the traumas of homelife.  And it is with some small pleasure that I hear the birds at 4:30 this morning.  They sing in a different way at this hour as I'm sure you may have noticed.  They chirp in long chirps and dissonant conversation, uninterrupted by the hectic fray of the planet's busy passengers, also known as humans. 

In this hour I am reminded of my youth.   I have been pulled awake by memory.  I have been roused by the echoes that I have learned to disregard as I also learned to step in time with the necessities and scariness of life.  Oh, but at this hour I can feel the angels--the ones that sit by us, heads pressed right up against ours as they listen to our worries. And at times like these, it seems, only times like these, when we've shed our clothes and predispositions and comfortable posturing ....  Oh then, yes then, we can feel the angels feeling back.

Is it silly to think so? I suppose so.  But at 4:30 in the morning with a weak cup of coffee I'm too tired to rebrew,  I am pulled back into the library of my childhood.  Some of you may remember the local library in Arbutus that sat  on top of the local clinic.   My first visits there usually followed getting a needle for my immunizations.  I'd sit and look at picture books and ignore the pain in my arm.   And so with torture then came intrigue and a place that sowed curiosity into a  uncomplacent mind (though I may hope that mind is still so.)

The library was a refuge for me as I grew older.  Many of us were raised  poorer than we realized.  We were raised in an era when asking for ten dollars was akin to asking for a gas and electric payment, or two.  We were the children with change in our pockets rather than cards.  And so we had a bit of music when we wandered.  Alas when the tinkling  ran out, then bored, we roamed  the streets in the summer.  But air conditioning beckoned and that has not changed.  Back then we'd forage in libraries that still used stampers for the dates and people that relied on our names to track our check outs.

I would check out as many books as possible.  I'd read about two books in a sitting in the library and take a dozen home.  Nothing fancy mind you, I was a lazy reader back then.  I wanted to know the end of the story.  It was only when I grew older that I realized that the reading in and of itself was the journey and the destination.  But back then I'd sit between the stacks and pull paperbacks among me as friends.  I'd read and read and read.

Sometimes though, I'd stumble upon a book that was thick and interesting and often disturbing.  And this caused me distress.  That curiosity of mine was not well honed and often it would lead me to paths of poignancy.  I'd be suddenly stripped of some snug skin of ignorance.  It would be wiped away so quickly I'd have no time to recognize that it had been there to begin with.   This is what reading does to you.  It rips you alive. And yet I'd return, week after week, shock after shock, story after story.  I'd sit in the sunlight that streamed  through the large windows which was supported further by lines of fluorescent lighting.  I'd sit among the neat organized rows of documented observation of this thing we call life.  I'd sit among  our history and it's dedicated witnesses.   I'd sit among the millions of pages of wit, irony, hope and epic.

The library has a smell that has never changed. The smell of pages and hard covers is a distinct smell.   A good friend of mine once told me that the dignity of America's place in the world is that it has a foundation in reading.  There are bookstores everywhere.  Yet none of them smell like that smell of the library of my youth.  You know that smell; I can't describe it.  If I tried I would say it smelled bitingly new and tragically old all at the same time.  It smelled the way the birds sound when they sing in the early hours of the morning:  long, noetic, hopeful, resilient, sad and alive.   How lucky we all are to know that poetry.  How blessed we are when books rest in new hands that were worn apart in older ones. It is a legacy and a tenuous memory.  It is what reading means to those who have borne its passion.  Pages and stories and truth and lies.

I was torn from sleep this morning by the memory of Peter Falk in the movie Der Himmel über Berlin.  There is a scene in the movie when the angels wander through the library listening to the worries of each person.   Who are these angels in real life?  They are those who we think to turn to when confronted with the brutality and the joy of the world.  The turning of pages requires more than one hand and more than one mind or heart.  We cannot bear our own reality without the empathy of those who know us best.  Looking at reality is something that requires much support.  It requires those who can create a safety net in our ability to love in spite of the cruelty that we display.  It requires a shoulder to turn to when we brave love---those willing to" assemble, testify and preserve."  This burden is usually taken on by the teachers in our lives.  When they falter we must turn to angels.

I will attach this tribute video below.  And also a clip called "Epic of Peace" which has subtitles.  I hope they hold a special place in your heart as they do mine.  They remind me of my younger days. They remind me of my own responsibility to our younger generations. So thanks to Melissa  and Peter Falk and Nomi and all the readers, guiders and teachers in my life.  You are truly angels to me.








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[MadelineB]

Bravo!

Thank you for posting these, Mixie. In my religion, books are sacred objects, librarians are angels, and writers are prophets.

I too had an impoverished childhood rich with books, words, and ideas.

At first I hated text messages, twitter, and facebook updates, because they seemed to bring out the worst in all-thumbs communication. But I eventually realized that they invite us to write perfect, self-sufficient paragraphs, the foundation of any essay.

[mixie]

Thank you!   I thought no one had read it.

[MadelineB]

Thank you!   I thought no one had read it.

Please post more of your writing when you get the chance Mixie. You have a real way with words.

And feel free to comment on other posts in the forum. Its easy as a writer to feel isolated, like nobody will ever read your words. At Susan's we actually get a lot of readers who never comment but do appreciate what is written. Your essay for example has been read 35 times already.

[mixie]

Cool ok I might.

Actually the coolest part of the whole evening with Mary is that she is a professional writer and I've wanted to get into that for years!