Library card

Every day when I come to the intersection right before my daughter’s elementary school, I see it.  This particular branch of the Los Angeles Public Library has been tempting me ever since I started going next door to the sandy, sunny park next door with my children.  Today I had half an hour to spend before I watched the children parade by in their Halloween costumes, so I finally went inside.  I looked around to get the feel of the place.  It reminded me more of my college library then the public library I frequented as a child in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  That library was spacious, a contemporary brick building with dark windows, lit on the inside with fluorescent lights and adorned with blond wood and dark wall-to-wall carpet.  My college library, and many of the college libraries I’ve been in since, had a spacious feeling that was as much because of the large windows overlooking a lawn as the indirect lighting and mix of carpet and wood flooring.  The building reminded me of the mind in the act of reading and thinking, plenty of comfortable recesses in full view of everything else, not loud but not impervious to the sounds outside.

 

My library card had been my ticket out of long, monotonous summers as a child and teenager.  I wasn’t old enough to drive or work, and the only thing other thing I could do on my own was walk to the movie theater.  After I’d seen everything that came to the downtown theater numerous times (the first Indiana Jones movie about 20 times, the Star Wars movies over and over and over, and even “The World According to Garp” and “Gandi” multiple times), there was little else for me to do.  So I would go to the library and discover a passing interest while browsing the aisles of the children’s library.  For a time I was obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology, then Egypt, then biographies (after reading a good one on Cleopatra), then the Tudor period in England, science fiction featuring dragons and swords, and so on.  For a while it was partly about earning stars on the summer reading program charts posted at the entrance to the children’s library.  But then it was about learning more, discovering, not having to ask my mom for a dollar to go to the movies or a few dollars to go to McDonald’s.

 

I intended just to look inside.  The last thing I need is another stack of books to read.  Besides, I didn’t have a Los Angeles library card.  I have a library card for the Santa Monica Library, and I have barely used it in the eight years I’ve carried it around.  That has more to do with how difficult parking is in my city than anything else.  My house and office overflow books that display my dilettantish intentions to learn about a wide variety of subjects, from child rearing to poetry, novels, history, geography, and physics.  I have spent a fortune on these books and have yet to read most.  I found homes for some books four summers ago when I was pregnant and between jobs, selling the academic books on Amazon and a few strays (travel books were the most in demand) to a used book store in the neighborhood.  Giving deep discounts on all of the books, I earned over $1,000 dollars.  And I made barely a dent in my permanent collection.

 

I browsed the shelves, my favorite way to find books.  I was in the nonfiction section in the aisle with biographies and geography when I saw a several books that I wanted to read, or have the option to read – a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, books on India, and “Eat, Pray, Love”.

 

I left with a few of the books I’d eyed (three books on India), and the library card that turned out to be the real reason for my visit.