Back Among The Books

Last Sunday afternoon, I stopped by my local library. 

I had not been there in a long, long time.

When my girls were little, we used to go to the library several times a week. It was a fun, exciting destination for us, not just a quick errand to run in and pick up books. We would take our time and settle in for a proper visit. The girls would play on the rocking dinosaur, make the puzzles, explore every corner of the children's bookshelves. And of course, we would read. While we were there, I would read anywhere from two to ten books aloud to them, right on the spot. And then we would accumulate a stack of books to take home. Those were wonderful times, and I treasure the memories.

But life moves on. My daughters don't ride wooden dinosaurs so much anymore and while we still check out plenty of books (and movies and books on CDs), we usually reserve them online and just run in to pick them up from the hold shelf when they arrive. Times have indeed changed.

So when I stopped in to browse the foreign films shelves this weekend, I was surprised and delighted to see that my former hangout was a beehive of activity, humming with industry and purpose. 

We found plenty of foreign films to choose from, as well as:

a stack of gently used Sunday New York Times,

tables full of teenage girls with their laptops open, 

streams of people using the computers, checking out books and streaming up and down the aisles,

a sweet little puppet theater with plenty of well-used puppets,

the beautiful stained glass window and wooden beams of the exposed ceiling,

and 

an older man tutoring a teenage boy. 

It was an exciting, interesting stimulating place to be and I'm thinking that maybe next Sunday afternoon, I might go back.