The World Is Quiet Here

I love libraries. I've always loved libraries. I love the way they smell in the stacks, sort of dusty and papery and a lovely shade of gray-yellow. I love getting lost in the library, going up row after row of books books books and seeing a thousand and one, no a MILLION and one volumes that I'll probably never read but that, for a moment, seem so incredibly interesting that they consume me. For the first time, well, ever really, I got to just wander in Swem Library. I went with a purpose-- to return a vestry book and to check out Camera Lucida and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil-- and came out with a pile of books. So many that the librarian asked if I needed a bag.

I sat on the floor in front of the shelves of children's books, picking out titles that sounded funny or cute or like fairytales. I discovered that in addition a rather large section of books on photography-- daguerreotype to digital-- Swem has a collection of books on wine and wine tasting! Perhaps I could moonlight as a sommelier. I lose myself in books about Tudor England and books about the 18th century and really any type of book from histories to books on literary theories to postmodernist novels. The library makes me feel incredibly elated and incredibly small. So much knowledge and how on earth can I ever read even a fraction of it? How can I write anything worthwhile when so much has already been written? It scares me to the core and inspires me beyond its innumerable words.



(photo from here)