Library Nostalgia

[moominmuppet]

I was talking last night with Mark about how the library in my childhood home town was deeply influential in encouraging my love of reading, and my absolutely irrational fondness for librarians. Although I could read from a very young age, and my family read to me constantly, it was the Summer Reading Challenge, with little prizes for the number of books read, that really got me voracious about it, and I've been that way since. I have wonderful memories of that library; I can still recall exactly where the Nancy Drew books were, where the wonderful series on inventors and scientists was, and where I'd first starting exploring adult SF. There was a stuffed snake that curled all the way around the children's section, on top of the bookcases. I loved it when they brought him down. Dad was on the Library Board, and I remember running around with my friend Debbie, after the lights were out, having rubber band fights with the rubber bands we stole from the library desk. I remember the easter egg hunt in the woods behind the library, and running over to the Dairy Queen next door for ice cream. As far as I'm concerned, my memories of Holly, MI, can be encapsulated in "My woods, my church, my library". Everything else was tangential.

On a whim, I called them this morning, intending to do a semi-anonymous "thank you, your work matters a lot", since I didn't really expect anyone I'd known was still working there, but when she asked when I'd been there, and I said 79-80s, and I mentioned Dad was on the library board, she asked his name, and she remembers the whole family. There are three librarians still on staff there from when we were there, and she's going to pass along my message, and sends their regards to my folks.

I'm a big believer in finding the people who made a difference, once upon a time, and letting them know it. I've done it with my homeroom and science teachers from Roeper, too, about ten years back. If someone makes such a difference in your life that you remember that decades later, why on earth not make the world a little brighter and let them know? Maybe it's the rose-colored glasses talking, but it seems in general that spending at least as much time letting people know when things go right as when they go wrong makes for a better world.

Not unrelatedly, I'm in a very cheerful and expansive mood. I was in a very mixed mood early this week -- some stuff that's great and fun and going in cool directions, but also something that really upset and hurt and confused me. It seems that the latter probably wasn't as personal as I was feeling it at the time, though, which is good, and means I can go the peaceful, happy-for-everyone route instead.

Currently reading Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics. I'm loving it for what it is -- a good combination of personal memoir and analysis of the interactions between feminism and bisexuality among women in the past century. I identify with lots of it, really like her approach, yadda-yadda. Which is why it's so damned irritating that I have such a huge objection to the title and back cover. Oh, and the inside flap cover. Because over and over again, it implies this book is about bisexual people in general. Both genders. Nowhere does it even suggest that she's limiting her focus to bi women's issues. Nowhere in the first 157 pages, at least (of a 227 page book), does she acknowledge herself that this is what she's doing. The irony of reading a book that talks at length about bi invisibility, while it simultaneously seems to feed the invisibility of bi men is a bit much for me at moments. I'm fine with her focus -- I just want her to acknowledge, somewhere, that this is what she's doing.

I'm finding myself missing lunatickle and fabulousmisst somethin' fierce. I really need to get down to B'more soon. Also, I'm finding it frustrating that I have so few pictures of my loved ones. It seems like photographic documentation of the people in my life mostly stopped after college, when I stopped hanging out with photo geeks who took all our pics for us. I should do something about that, especially since I actually have a digital camera now. I think I just never stopped feeling awkward about "hey, let's take a picture now".

Comments

[sylvanfae]

The library of my childhood is a magical place, in my memory, too. =) The outside doesn't look like much, but on the opposite side are some huuuuge windows that look out (there's a door to it, too) into a sweet grove of big trees, with benches. Right on Main Street, in the city. So there was some nature and natural light that helped make it magical for me.

I still have my library card, but I doubt it's still valid.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

So there was some nature and natural light that helped make it magical for me.

*nod* Ours had that too, although it's remodeled since, and the children's room as I remember it has had an entire extra room added on.

Library.

[jajy1979.livejournal.com]

I don't have the mystical memories of the library that you have. I remember it well enough, and the people there were mostly nice (though my most vivid memory is them trying to get me to dress up as a clown one year, I still loath clowns to this day). It just never became the haven for me that I think it was for you. But you were slightly older and we left there when I was still very little. Davison's library was a different feel, I spent more time there I think, but it still doesn't hold a firm place in my head like trips to the nursing homes with Dad did. I was also far less inclined to check books out than you are, but I'm a more possessive person in the end and prefer to buy rather than borrow, own rather than rent.

[jajy1979.livejournal.com]

Thinking about bi-sexual politics for a moment or two, I find it interesting how much more difficulty people seem to have in accepting a bi-sexual male than a bi-sexual female. Most seem to think "Oh he's just gay and won't really admit it" kind of attitude, whereas there is a certain current of sexual voyeurism that gives us a "Cool, she digs chicks too" response to the bi-sexual woman.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

*nod* There's a lot of writing about that topic. It's part of why I was so surprised that she didn't even mention it.


(p.s. -- always "bisexual", never "bi-sexual", unless you're going to start writing "homo-sexual" and "hetero-sexual" as well)