“It’s the latest, it’s the greatest…”

I’m on a reading kick lately. Reading helps me to tune the buzzing static of my insecurities to the right station until I can sit back and analyze them with more clarity. I enjoy being a spectator to other people’s or characters’ stories for a while, particularly on rare days when I feel like a background character in my own. I overthink. I underthink. I misinterpret. I acquiesce to the harsh judgement that accompanies creative drain some days, goals crowning a mountain peak that seems to grow out of reach despite my efforts.

I pitch my hammock into the rockface and will it to hold so I can keep climbing once I’m rested. When I need a break from decision making, from world-building, from feelings of inadequacy, I pick up a book or my Kindle. When I read, the print on crisp pages takes the reins as my supply of curiosity and potential refill.

Until recently, I would buy books or borrow them from friends or family willing to lend them. I am a serial re-reader when it comes to books that I own and am careful in selecting books to purchase. I wait; I visit; I ask for advice. I will continue to buy books that mean something to me.

My shelves and Kindle are stocked with different genres: fantasy, historical fiction, murder mysteries, and a smattering of minimalism, wellness, and nostalgic childhood one-offs here and there. Books are my time machine. They transport me to different memories, different people, and I feel connected to those experiences and people again, even if they are not alive anymore or if we have simply lost touch.

To supplement my book buying practice, in the continual pursuit of living with less clutter, I finally visited my local public library branch. When I applied for my library card, the three staff members behind the circulation desk welcomed me to the area. I have lived in the area for four years. Let’s just say I didn’t admit that since there’s no excuse for it taking me as long as it did.

If you are a book lover without a library card, don’t hesitate like I did. It’s time, really.

Aside from being welcomed to the neighborhood when picking up my library card (I can only imagine the books will silently shame me forever for my transgression in waiting four years!), I was also serenaded by one of the librarians with this bad boy from 1967, perhaps more appropriately known as The Library Song written by, Fred Hertz and Joel Herron.

“There’s a place for you and a place for me,
it’s the local public library.
They have books and things that they lend for free
It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.“

If I knew there’d be fanfare, I’d have gone sooner. 🙂

Wielding my new magic access card to hundreds of thousands of books across my county, I went “shopping” in the library, or at least, that’s what it felt like – and bonus, no buyer’s remorse! I keep a list of books that I want to read and suggestions from friends and family in my notes on my phone and it was so easy to peruse the library app to find the reference numbers and sections for the books on my list. I know! I’m late to the party and Hermione Granger is screaming at me right now somewhere in the fictional universe, but I don’t care, because I’ve finally made it. I was excited to walk out of the building with two adventures in my hands and the promise of many more ahead of me, all for the nice round price of zero dollars. In the words of Will Hunting, “How you like them apples?”

With this lifeline nearby, its shelves of plastic-sheathed, coded offerings waiting to be read and re-read, I feel calm and excited, only overwhelmed by wanting to read more stories than I have time to read. I am determined to rekindle my relationship with the Dewey Decimal System, remembering now what a great pair we made throughout my school days all the way up through college. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say, and I’ve fallen again. What else would you expect from a word nerd like me? Afterall, “It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.“