Every time I go to the library I feel some combination of delight and wonder. That such a thing exists. That it’s free. That it is almost always humming.
Here’s how a recent visit to the main branch of the Cambridge Public Library went.
I picked up a book for my book group, ordered through the Minuteman Library system. As easy as Amazon, honestly, and free. I love knowing that it has passed between hands, sat on bedside tables, taken trips, and ridden the subway with other humans.
I walked up to the second floor and moved through three shelves, chock-a-block with cookbooks. I touched spines, flipped pages, and did not look for anything in particular which made everything potentially interesting. Thirty minutes using a wide angle lens felt more like sixty.
A woman sat at a light-filled worktable, her sleeping baby strapped to her chest while she tapped away at her laptop. Communion with her baby nested inside community for her.
Across from her, an older man moved a bright yellow highlighter steadily across a stack of printed pages. A group of backpack-slinging high school kids from next door took up the rest of the table, companionability assumed rather than asked for. Out the window, people batted a ball around on the public tennis courts, eager for an opportunity to be outside.
I did some work. Answered a few emails. Things I could have done at home way more efficiently. But leaving the house made other things possible. I stopped in to see my father and stepmother and dropped off some surplus soup. On the way home I noticed a new bakery and stopped in.
I checked out 8 books and came back with much more than that. And all of it — the books, the afternoon, the dip into a bigger pool of lives being lived — free! How amazing.
Love, Jill