Ahhh...what a wonderful afternoon. My sister, Tenille, and I went to library. Call me a loser if you like, this is where magic happens.
I make my usual route---first to the autobiography section in the back. I pick up books on ancient heros, famous celebrities, and ordinary people who have suffered extraordinary struggles and survived. Some I simply lay back on the shelf without regards to where it lay in the first place. I'm selfish like that. Others catch my attention and I start to build a pile in my right arm while I browse through the never ending shelves...thank God for them never ending.
Libraries are a great place to people watch, I noticed. You can pick out the true readers from the ones who were assigned a project in school. The true readers hold their books close to their hearts with their fingers curled over the tops. They notice no one else; they're hypnotized by the smell, the look, the feeling the books give them...the feeling of escape.
My next stop is the "New Non-Fiction" section. Here, I sit down on the floor and try to find books I haven't yet seen. Sometimes I change my mind about a book I previously turned down and decide it's worth my time. I know it's shallow, but the back covers with the praise notes are what always hooks me; I search for words like "haunting".
Today, a girl from my prayer group walked up to me and said, "Hey, don't I know you from the pole?"..."Why, yes, yes you do." Then we introduce ourselves, she compliments me on an awesome name as if I had anything to do with it, and she tells me what a great reader she is. I can't stand people like that.
The last place I visit before calling it quits is the movie section. Of course, the library doesn't carry many movies worth seeing, but sometimes you find a keeper. Today I got "Harvey" with James Stuart and "Analyze That". The first, I've seen and it's simply wonderful. The second? Who knows, it could turn out ok.
The books I got were, "Church Boy" by Kirk Franklin, "A Memoir from the Roadside" by Bruce Moody, "Knee Deep in Paradise" by Brett Butler, "Who Will Cry for the Little Boy?" by Antwone Fisher, and "Find Me" by Rosie O'Donnell. I'm a sucker for survivor books...survivors of life.
Maybe one of these days I'll realize I'm a survivor and write one of my own.
Trinitie