The Libraries

[Image via The University of Cambridge]

Thinking of autumn reminds me of wandering libraries. I have wandered many. There was the large one in Gainesville with all of the movie/DVD shelves. I would browse, waiting for my computer ticket number to come up so I could check my email at one of their computers. There was the large one in Ocala that had shelves and shelves of magazines. I would pick one up and sit at one of the large tables to flip through and dream. I loved their Spanish books section where I discovered Jorge Bucay and Paulo Coelho. There was the mystery book section where the covers always intrigued me, but never enough.

Then, there was the university library. It had these magical shelves that moved. I would take the footnotes from a lecture and look up the books to read them. I could renew them endlessly because no one cared. I loved the basement with maps, and the quiet lost rooms with rare books and wooden detailing in the walls. Then, there was the law library. It was illuminated by the soft glow of the table lamps, silence masking the savagery of some who would come to rip out pages to hoard knowledge.

No matter what library I found myself in, autumn was a season of knowledge and books. I stare at my shelves in my studio and smile. My shelves don’t move, and my books have all of their pages, but the stack awaits me still.