When Suzie asked when I last had a library card, the year 1986 came to mind, but it may have been before that. We were discussing libraries and what I needed to get a library card to start visiting the library near our home – turns out daily coffee/tea and cookies/muffin take a deep toll on the monthly budget – and Suzie said libraries were free because we as tax-payers have already paid for them.
I don’t really have a need for the book aspect of a library (I usually buy the books I want to read because I believe in paying an author for their words). A quiet sanctuary in which I write these blog posts and a possible new project was more what I was seeking, and as I made my way into the florescent-flooded ‘low-volume zone’ of the second floor, my memories of the deserted pin-drop quiet space of the Brandeis University libraries (especially the science one) faded as a group of tables seemed mostly filled with tutors and students – taken together it didn’t sound very ‘low volume’ at all. Still, some surrounding background noise never bothered me much (see my beloved cafe culture, which I found myself missing already) and though it had been decades since I’d done any work in a library, this felt thrillingly familiar.
At a nearby table, a tutor awaits her student. When she arrives with her father, he says he will be right back with Starbucks and asks the tutor if she wants anything. She politely declines, and he departs to pick up the food for his daughter. In about fifteen minutes, he returns with one of those very berry hibiscus drinks, which he puts down on the table along with a cookie. He goes back downstairs and the lesson continues for a few minutes, until the girl spills her drink all over the table. Frantic motions by the tutor save the girl’s phone and some papers.
What a difference a generation makes, I think. If I’d had to be tutored in grade school my father would NOT be bringing me Starbucks in the library. Though if I had a child I also would not be bringing them Starbucks in a library, so maybe it’s not a generation thing but an Ilagan thing.
I’m just getting used to writing in this atmosphere when a wailing cry sounds from downstairs. Someone is having a tantrum, while a group of other kids is running around to the point where some lady yells, “Boys! Somebody’s going to get hurt!” I couldn’t tell if she meant by accident or by her own hand.
By the time a very young girl, left to her devices with no accompanying adult in sight, stands right beside me to hide from someone below in a one-sided game of hide-and-seek, I know my time at this library has come to a close, at least for this afternoon.
Maybe I just need to find out when the downtime is and try again then. Or maybe I give up a new bottle of cologne and pay for cafe culture for another month.
