Little Cities of Lost Books
TAGGED: adventures, books, libraries, places, word-challenge, wordsRecently, 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.
my stories
TAGGED: adventures, my stories, traversing, wandering, wonderingOver the next little while, I’ll be telling a few tall tales from our recent trip to Tasmania.
When I came home from the trip, I had a small list of ideas for the virtual bonfire that is Scrine. We were only away a week or so, so the list is not long.
I can’t help but wonder why I haven’t done the same for our big trip last year. After a month away, there was so much food for thought it was a feast. I certainly intended to share some of that time away, but each time I came to write my head was too full of strong images and intense emotions. In the end, the wintery and intense feeling of belonging and then the feeling of no longer being there was all I wrote about.
I know, in part, this is because some of the places we visited are far too devastating a tale for me to do the story justice. I think it is also because they are not my story to tell.
It might also be that my home, unbearably hot as I often find it to be, is inherently my home. It’s where I find it easiest to think.
Still, if I attempt to be honest with myself, it’s probably just about the mechanics. When I travel through places like France, Poland and Russia much of my available brain activity is spent panicking over whether I can correctly order a coffee, read a street sign or ask for help.
Yet, I haven’t given up. I’m hoping that the next few tales of traverses in Tasmania will help untangle the tales from Europe.
It will be fun trying. A road paved with tales. Are you packed and ready to go?
Let’s see if I am.
my country
TAGGED: adventures, my country, my stories, traversing, wandering
Ah, adventuring is such great fun.
There’s the preparation. The thinking about it, the doing of it, the lying in bed worrying at it. Then, eventually, there’s the adventure itself.
This adventure takes place in my country. Not my home, exactly, but a little bit further south of where it lies.
Where shall I start? Shall we dive right in to the middle? Will we delve into the microscopic detail? Or shall we stroll along and just see what we find?
Let’s kick up our feet and start from the top. Which is not the same as the beginning.
I’ve always loved to walk. Not quite so much as a swim, but it’s that same feeling that if I didn’t have a reason to stop maybe I never would. I can see that the older I get, the easier it will be to stop. But that’s for then and this is for now. Of course, there’s walking and there’s walking.
Walking around hills and mountains is an unbelievable high. (Pun fully intended.) I wouldn’t describe it as a feeling of conquering. What an odd notion that would be. A human conquering a mountain? With what? A shovel and an awful lot of time?
It’s a mixture of feelings. It’s a feeling of fatigue and aching muscles. It’s astonishment at the raw beauty of the landscape. A dizzy sense of flying, on sight of the view from the top. It’s a sense of quiet and of stillness. It is, for me, a gentle sense of achievement and of overcoming the physical body. It is unbearably, bodily beautiful.
I’m no mountain-climber, but even little strolls, like those around Crater Lake, may give you an insight into what that would be like.
One thing is for certain, whatever it takes of you to make the walk, it gives it back to you a hundred-fold.