Little Cities of Lost Books
Recently, thanks to roundabout news of library closures in the US, I was reminded of the thin and dull day when I found out that my childhood library was gone.
I had thought it would have just been shut and immediately emptied of its books. Converted into a laughably well stocked bottle shop.
Of course, I did not think it through. The fate could have been far worse.
The library may just have been closed, its shelves still full of books.
No money for staff? Cut backs! they cry as they fly overseas to courses on costs rationalisation.
No demand for the printed word? No one reads anymore! they tell us from out between the lines of the newspaper.
No one goes outside anymore? No one visits libraries anymore! they tell us as they jaunt from one newly opened football stadium to another.
Of course, this whimsical view I have of libraries is no doubt coloured by the effect that my library had on me as a youngster. Yet, isn’t that the point?
Decades later can it not be one of the building bricks of my character, the feeling that I had, standing in that room full of books with nothing more clever to say than “gosh”. I was young and I’m sure my vocabulary wasn’t big, but it was even smaller that day for the sight of all those books.
The memory is vague, but I at least know it to be mine. It is not one rubbed shinily from a printed photo.
That games room (ah, Battleship!). Those grey metal shelves. The skirt-wrapped legs of the friendly librarian. These are all my memories and it was my place.
I can’t tell you the first book I read there, nor the last. I can’t tell you the best one ever read. I can tell you the love that I felt. That it felt like my place. My place of books.
I’m sure it had Toad of Toad Hall. Right next to Piglet and Pooh. George! And his Dragon. Who knows what else? Books of eggplants and aubergines. Books of bridges and buildings. Books of eclipses and novas. Whatever there was, it was my adventure. It was my sanctuary. Mine and all the other kids.
The thought of it shutting, leaving the books behind, leaves me sadder than I can say. Without reason, I am sure.
Whole shelves of ghostly characters. Gardens covered in dust. Night skies collapsing in. Lost adventurers.
The empty room, once full of books - so sad. But not so sad as the room full of books, bereft of readers.
I hope that their adventure lives on. No, I know it does.
It’s still here with me, inside this frighteningly overpacked head.
Take up your walking stick, come adventuring with me.
Turn the page.
Begin.
the unfinished book
About a year ago, I nearly finished a book. There were only about twenty pages left.
The book is Moondust by Andrew Smith.
If you intend to read this book, you may consider what follows a spoiler. I would say no, not technically, but, if you’re worried, please do go away and read it and come back some other day.
I stopped reading at that point for good reason and not because I wasn’t enamoured with the story telling. It’s beautifully written and enchanted me the whole way.
The author had set out to interview all the remaining astronauts that have ever walked on the surface of the moon. I will let him tell you why when you read the book, as he does a much better job of it. Far more eloquent than I.
Regardless, I was cheering for him all the way through. I wanted so much to hear from all of these men. For as long as I can remember knowing that men once walked on the moon, I have wanted to know more. Anything about them at all. I will never understand what is like, but they went there. It has always made me smile to think about it, just as it does now.
At the last 20 pages, there was still one to go. I couldn’t bear to read any more. I didn’t want to know that he might have failed. I put the book down for a time when I was more ready to hear the news.
Recently it was the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Time to pick it up again, lady. Deep breath and in you go.
How often books do this to me. Leave me staggered and permanently altered. Change my life. Touch me in an almost or actual physical way.
Here’s to those men that walked on the moon. The men and women who have been to space, to travel among the stars. And, this time, to those that take me there with their words, whether for real, for history or for make believe.
Take me away. Turn the page, and set me free.
the ol’ rusty bird
Never will I ever be able to adequately explain how beautiful a place this is to me.
I have been a part of other online communities, but they have come and gone. Or I have.
Scrine isn’t only that and never will be. It fills a place in my heart that has little to do with the internet and much to do with a home.
I shan’t wax lyrical, I don’t have the right words. The only two I have are the ones that always come to mind. Thank you.
Thank you, Keith. Thank you, rusty bird. And, this very special once, thank you, e.
ol’ boot
What’s in a name?
Not much, I hear you say. What’s in the name ‘boot’? Not much, I’d claim.
When I first signed up to Scrine, I thought that I was merely inspired by a colleague’s surname (akin to boot) and a conversation about it with a friend. I even received an envelope addressed to ‘Miss Boot’. I have it somewhere still.
A short time ago I was in our spare room, merrily fossicking.
Ah, let us just linger here a moment and enjoy that word ….. lumpy, bumpy and full of promise, isn’t it?
Fossicking, assessing, discarding and digging up old bits and bobs, including the aforementioned ‘Miss Boot’ envelope.
I uncovered a hidden treasure. A few of my favourite comic books. One I should save for a whole other post. Conchy, by James Childress, is deserving of far more than a mere one or two of my words.
Another comic book rediscovered was The Perishers, by Maurice Dodd, drawn by Dennis Collins. What a romp this book is! Beautifully inked and full of life’s oddities and silliness. Just sighting the cover is amusement enough.
Two of the main characters are an orphaned boy named Wellington, and his faithful, if slightly dotty, sheepdog.
Turning the pages in simple joy, I was stopped mid-reminiscence when I read the name of Wellington’s dear friend. Boot. Boot!
Lo these many years, I believed my name here on Scrine was a random event. A mildly amusing thought, turned into a long-lasting nickname. One that has leapt out of the screen and gone travelling around the world with me. One that has seen my cupboard overflow with boot like shapes. An amusing tickle, but nothing more.
But, no. Here is one of my most beloved characters of pen and ink, nosing his way through the pages, bearing the name of Boot all the way.
How is it that I forgot this? Is it totally unrelated? Or is my boot-obsessed brain playing 20 year tricks on me and messing with my head in unexpected ways.
What else lies in there? Was my name previously Becky or Jane? Perhaps they are long lost sisters? Or, tormentor in the case of the latter.
Just what is my brain trying to tell me? Will boot have future significance? More likely, I’ll cause it to have future significance and think more of it than was ever there.
Ah, heedless of all these rambling thoughts, allow me to raise a glass. A toast to ol’ Boot. A toast to the now deceased Dodd and Collins. A toast to whimsy and adventure.
to Boot.
my heart, in bloom
Late winter may not be the season that many think of as beauty and blooming wonders, but for me, in Europe, that’s what it will always be.
For someone growing up in a country of sun and sometimes rain, snow is a mystical thing. A manifestation of stories and imagination. More real than fairies, but not by much.
Snow - real, white, fall from the sky like magic, snow - is far better than I ever imagined it could be. I imagined some pretty amazing things, but nothing came close to how good it really is.
It’s been a few weeks since we came home, but still my heart is lost here. It’s over there somewhere, with the footprints of the birds, lost in time, between worlds and between places, wandering among the catacombs.
The stories, when I come here to write, to leave a tale of our wondrous wanderings, come out jumbled, tangled up in the feelings that travelled with us.
The one clear picture, the one that I can still feel and touch, is the snow.
And there, if I look, is where I can see my heart. Not lost, after all. Just faraway.
I suspect I may actually have been somewhat lost all my life in this hot, dry country and, for a few glorious weeks, I was home.
Snow.
