A Rhapsody on Libraries

I have several different half-finished blog posts languishing in the 'Drafts' section of Blogger, more yet-to-be-completed first drafts of short stories begging for attention and a lengthening creative to-do list staring accusingly at me whenever I open Pages. My capacity for finishing anything has temporarily deserted me, and after sitting at my laptop for days on end alternately gazing at an empty document and running off to procrastinate with more housework, I packed my Herschel backpack (part of the standard uniform in Vancouver, where I once lived for a year, along with Hunter wellies and a sturdy umbrella) and trekked up the hill to the library in town. I had to go up anyway to weigh myself on the fancy scales in the leisure centre, as part of a post-university effort to turn around my stress-induced weight gain. After that, I fled to the library to choose a new book as I usually do, and this time signed up to the WiFi, to finally get some writing done.

Right now a wailing toddler is being escorted from the premises by his nana after an abortive attempt to choose him a book. A librarian is patiently explaining how to work one of the computers to a technophobe. An elderly lady is ordering in a stock of Mills & Boon novels. After shamelessly eavesdropping on a conversation at the table I'm sitting on about an upcoming driving test, I started a short story about my first attempt at the test, which involved nearly running over a traffic-controlling policeman when coming across a spectacular funeral cortege (massive horses pulling a hearse carriage, a phalanx of sombre mourners, misinterpreting a 'stop' gesture as 'go right on'!). I started writing this blog post, finally ending yet another unintentional hiatus on elfie.

Libraries are some of my favourite places. In a month I will be moving into the interns' flat at the beautiful Gladstone's Library in nearby Hawarden, a research library with over quarter of a million books that looks like an extension of Hogwarts. My university library was the only one on campus and as a result was forever stuffed to the gills with hardworking students hogging the power points. It was stuffy and hot but there was something soothing about working my way through my handwritten list of books needed for essays, wandering round the stacks and picking up history books on wild topics purely for the fun of it. At the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, there were eight libraries and dozens more study spaces, from the gorgeous Koerner Library shaped like an open book, to the Irving K. Barber Centre with a reading room that looks like the Gryffindor common room (sense a recurring Potterish theme) and a rare books collection hidden in the basement. I Skyped my parents from the sofas in the foyer of Koerner, nearly squished someone in the rolling stacks several times, and silently invented an array of sweary insults for the guy who demanded I take my watch and bracelet off because the tapping was disturbing him, then told me off for typing too loudly.

The library I'm sat in today is nowhere near as grand as Gladstone's, nor as well-stocked with history books as the university libraries I've been to, but I've been coming here for books since I was two, did my Year 10 work experience here, and returned in the holidays from university whenever I was at a loose end. It's small, a tad utilitarian, and lacks a decent coffee machine, but the quiet chatter stops it from being too silent and, comfortingly, most of the librarians have known me all my life.

Here is safe, here is warm, here is inspirational, here is not out there. Here lies away from my parents' house (much as I love them), from an unproductive rut, from a needy dog, from the banging and drilling of the men re-building our balcony. When I go back I'll resume laundry, dog-walking, cooking tea, cleaning, job-applying. But I will have written, so I will be happy. And I'll come back up here tomorrow with my bright red hipster rucksack and matching headphones, and write some more. Right now though, I'm hungry - I'm going to put up this post and head home for some of my mum's leftover fish pie for lunch. Job done, grad life a bit more bearable today.