Struggling through with joy... |
kind of.
Struggling through with joy... |
For my birthday last year my husband built me a free library. It’s painted deep red with white trim and blue accents. The door is Plexiglas so a person can peek in if she’s not ready to commit to actually hunting around inside. The bottom shelf is just high enough for an early reader to peek at the kid’s books on the bottom shelf; the top shelf is packed with thrillers and romance and science fiction, trade paperbacks and memoirs. Occasionally I throw in a cookbook, just to keep things interesting.
Yesterday my husband and I took a break from cleaning to sit together on the couch while the kids napped, and someone sped up to our little library and parked. This occurs a lot. I envisioned neighborhood kids and homeless people shopping from our library as they walked by, which does happen, but very often a person speeds up to the library, hops out of his car and throws open the door to the library with urgency. Usually people drop a few books off and take one or two. It’s almost impossible to resist standing and staring at visitors from our living room window. My husband and I leaned out of view of the window and took turns peeking at the man visiting our little library. It’s even harder for me not to run over like the overeager middle school girl I once was and pepper the person with questions. “Are you finding what you need? Where are you from? Do you come to our little library often? What kind of books do you wish we had more of? I feel like we don’t have enough titles representing minorities, and our YA selections are lacking, what do you think?” I try to guess what books people might pick based on their clothing and cars, if they have one. Black sweatpants and worn white t-shirt on a chubby man in his late fifties? Probably science fiction. Mom walking by with two little kids? A picture book for each, maybe more, and a memoir or thriller for her. It gives me hope to discover the multitude of fellow readers out there. I love seeing so many people use our library. I love it when the middle school kids walking home from school stop to look, even if they don’t take anything. I love the idea that we might give a person respite from the grind of his day with a John Grisham novel. I love watching the shy neighbor kid from across the street dart over to our library to drop off a book and pick something new out. As I head into middle age I realize I’m probably not going to do great things, at least not to the level I once hazily dreamed of. However, I can definitely “do small things with great love,” as Mother Teresa says. My little free library is a small thing filled with my greatest lifelong love – books. What a treat it is to share that.
3 Comments
Sonja
3/6/2018 06:05:08 pm
I am such a fan of LFL! I have the official plaque thing---but the friend that was making me the actual library seemed to forget it and so I haven't found anyone else to make me one yet. Your slice inspires me to get on that!
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