The Library

The library at Monroe was smaller than the library at the elementary school I had gone to, but it was open four hours a day, and it had three things I had not expected: a poetry section, a reference desk, and a librarian who recognized me by my second visit.

Her name was Karen. She had been the librarian at Monroe for nine years. She did not ask what I was in for. She asked what I had read recently. When I said I had not been reading, she nodded the way a doctor nods when a patient describes a familiar symptom, and she walked me to a shelf, and she pulled three books, and she said: “Start with the middle one.”

The middle one was a collection of essays about birds. I had no interest in birds. I read it anyway. By the end of it I had a small interest in birds. By the time I returned it I had a slightly larger interest. By the time I had read the next book Karen recommended, I had reorganized something in myself I did not have a name for.

I am not going to say the library saved my life. The library did not save my life. The library was a small room with three hundred books and a woman who asked me what I had read recently. What I am going to say is: that was enough. Sometimes a small room with a few books is enough.