community, joy, let it go, librarians

Private in Public

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

 

 

Sometimes at work, we feel more like babysitters, or referees to the public. Our library offers beautiful study rooms, with collaborative tech that many ignore in favor of doodling on the whiteboards and moving all the furniture and using their own devices.

These rooms were designed for group study, and yet some people believe they are the space best suited to make private calls or work on silent work. No! These rooms are made of glass! With the direct purpose of enabling library employees to see what is going on in there!

There are spaces suited for silent/quiet work, and the group study spaces are not one of them. So, as occurred last week, sometimes we have a studious middle-aged person who takes umbrage with the teens having an idle chat (plus or minus music or laughter) and the volume thereof.

I try to tell people early and often that the rooms are not soundproof, and that anything they are saying can and will be overheard by their neighbors. My rule of thumb is that if I can hear you clearly all the way from my desk, you are surely irritating the shit out of your neighbors. Then, I shush you! Under that threshold, as long as there is a harmonious agreement (aka no one complains and I do not observe library violations taking place), it is a community space and the community may use it to their needs.

And that brings me to the markers. I cringe a little when I see kids aimlessly doodling on the whiteboards, in a fashion some might deem “wasting” the markers. When I find myself stressing over the marker ink and costs, I remind myself of my prior statement: within reason/barring violations of policy, the community may use it to their needs. And, in many cases, they leave art behind. Many do this intentionally, but it could also be pure laziness and avoiding erasing their nonsense.

You decide!

Cry for attention
Interactive!
Daw.
So-and-so was here? Dickish, but a call to be seen
IMG_3983
Adorbs

And then my personal favorite, a stream-of-consciousness commentary/word poem:

IMG_4148
Could not love this more.

I think there is something precious about these glimpses into (what were likely) teen artists’ heads. At the very least, they leave a little personality behind on what would be sterile white surfaces. They claim “I was here!” and “I think I like doodling” and “we are ridiculous together” and sometimes even “we were productive today” (but those look a lot like notes/maths sooo I don’t take photos of them-boring!).

I love when there are good doodles left behind. I love the creativity, and the freedom of expression. I love that the kiddos feel at home enough to leave their arts on the walls. I love that they are goofy and themselves. Teens are not great at everything, but they are admirable in their them-ness. A better way to say it might just be authenticity.

Not that I did such a great job at being a teen, but when the conversation turns to “would you go back to do high school over again?” I say yes every time. Not only because I would do it with so much more confidence, but I genuinely loved high school. (All school up to grad, actually 🙂 I had the immense gift of a tribe of weirdos who, when we were together, we were total smart idiots, confident and off the wall. All of us had issues (mine being desperation at even the slightest of glances from a member of the opposite sex) but together, we were unstoppable.

And so, it still being January, I’m adding to my goals for this year. I want to be a little more like (the best parts of) me as a high schooler, with the benefit of both wisdom and legal age to purchase alcohol… Being goofy and myself, creative and at home in my surroundings. Learning all the time. Loudly in love with my friends. Friendos, let us gather and have bonkers conversations and general merriment! Duolingo is in progress, there is a nebulous plan for learning to make jewelry, and I might even purchase some film here someday soon (and a new gym membership…one that I’ll actually GO to!).

The dream is that I’ll be so immersed in creative pursuits that anxiety won’t even take root. And of course, I’ll hold myself accountable here, making the private more or less public!

anxiety, be a better human, books, career, community, depression, joy, let it go, reading, writing

How Time Works

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

As the clock struck midnight on January 1st, I sat, like many others, watching the ball drop. As the cameras panned the crowd at Times Square, an announcer held a microphone in front of a group of young women who exclaimed it was “SO CRAZY!” how it was a new decade. I laughed with someone I don’t know well but respect, as he said “it’s not crazy! It’s how time works!” My thoughts exactly. Literal! Practical!

Though it’s easy to critique merrymakers in varying states of intoxication, and though in general I am an advocate of remarking on wonder whenever it strikes, time really does work minute by minute and hour by hour.

Anxiety would have me fast forward through future days/hours/minutes until I know all the answers and the ways everything plays out. Depression and obsessive thinking would trap me in the past days/hours/minutes and replaying all of the cringeworthy mistakes and missteps I made, all the people who I lost. And it’s easy to look at a month, a year, a decade, in those terms.

Ten years ago, I was reeling from the most traumatic and destructive event of my life. I was paralyzed by fear, doubt, isolation and loss. I could not let go of the plan I had made and outwardly insisted I was fine, marching forward into the worst year of my life up to that point.

It is my hope that over the last ten years (especially the past one), I have learned to let go of the controlled plan and to deal with reality before I move forward. To stop forcing it. It is my goal to take each day as it comes and do my best with it, which is to say mindfully advance through, while prioritizing my needs as well as the people I care about. It is also my hope that when (not if!) I fail to do that, as I feel about this holiday season, I won’t punish myself with a constant stream of internal criticism but instead show some compassion.

And some of the minutes/days, compassion is out of my reach. I get trapped in my habits. And those are the days when I need to surround myself with the amazing humans in my orbit. New Year’s Eve was one of those days: I needed a shock out of my head. And I got it, in the form of social connection and warmth. (Note: NYE was not exclusive in this–I needed and got social connection and warmth over the holidays as well, from my amazing long-distance friends too.)

A lovely co-guest at my amazing friends’ dinner party brought a jar of questions for us all to answer, ranging from light and conversational to reflective and emotional. We were talking about the tribulations and triumphs of the year, the people we are grateful for and the lessons we’ve learned. And, like any good event, we quoted Titanic (to making it count!) It was a great end to the year, and it did feel crazy that I was into this sentimental, sort of mushy activity. It felt crazy and wondrous what a difference this decade has made.

And speaking of counting, 2019 was the first year of the decade that I didn’t meet or exceed my reading goal. I couldn’t be prouder of this shortcoming, because it means I was doing other things! Some fruitless, some counterproductive, but overall I was trying to take in a variety of media, and to output/create to counterbalance what I took in. There are many ways I can do more, or better, or more compassionately, but at the close of one HARD year and the start of another, I am okay with how I’ve done. A far cry from being in love with my life and free from fear or regret, but at least on that side of center.

Last week at the library, an older gentleman approached me and asked if we had a certain title. I helped him, and he challenged me to guess how old he was. He was excited and proud to show me his drivers license, stating his birth year of 1926, making him 93 years old (2 years older than my grandpa would be if he were alive). I was shocked, considering how mobile and lucid he was, and he wanted to share his ‘secret:’ he swims and rows 3 times per week, and has for years. That, and he dyes his hair 🙂 He seemed, overall, to be in love with his life.

This year, I’m going to take a page from him. I’m going to capitalize on any youth or strength I feel and celebrate the (sometimes painfully few) ways my body serves me. I’m going to be open and friendly with people I know and people I don’t (within boundaries). I plan to take pages from my friends and family, by creating (artfully or not) and putting people and pets first; from my colleagues by thinking before speaking and taking pride in my work.

This decade, I’m reclaiming my time. I’m getting my shit together, and keeping it that way. I’m falling in love, with my life if not more. And as long as I can, I’ll be working on being mindful and making this happen every minute and every day, because that’s how time works.

be a better human, let it go, meditation, strangers, talking

Off Days

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

The last women’s meditation, I wasn’t feeling it. And that’s okay.

It started off wrong. As a gluten-free individual in a world of free sandwiches, I rely on salads. This salad, however, had wheat berries and croutons mixed on in, and there weren’t allergen statements on anything else to ascertain safety. The event took a safe, familiar salad and made it toxic to me. I recognize the privilege of being served a free lunch at work, and I don’t want to complain, but this made me sad because the salad they usually have is delicious. Why mess with a good thing?

Anyway.

The actual meditation started out fine enough. The theme was “excitement” and the leader asked everyone what they were excited for this month. The obvious answers (family, food, time off) popped up. Someone got close-to-personal as her voice quavered as she said “I’m not feeling excited right now, and I am having trouble trying.” I said giving gifts, because I like doing that and it’s not too personal of a statement to share with a room of strangers (friends/family would get a different answer :)* When someone at the end of the circle said “making gifts” (emphasis spoken), I felt immediately that I had an enemy (aided by the fact that this particular person never acknowledges outside of that room that we have been in the same room many times). She was one-upping me. Okay, fine. Don’t let the negativity stick.

Then the instructor began, telling us about how excitement manifests not only in positive ways, but that when our systems are ‘excited’ by stress, we feel it, and we feel it too when our systems are defeated and succumb to the rest and relaxation when we are sick or just over it. I appreciated that she talked about how she was feeling under the weather and stressed over an upcoming final project she has in her yoga teaching program. She’s a human, and I like when people share more than just the positives.

She lost me after that. She guided us through a meditation about the seasons, and what we wear/eat/do during the seasons.

….um, what? How is this exciting? Not that she had to perform for us, but I didn’t see the connection to excitement at all. I was too excited to pay attention to her!

But, whatever! I was there, and that’s all I could do. Instead of judging her (or really even listening to her enough to get annoyed by the meh-ness) I just did my own thing and thought about what I actually needed right then. And I had that. I had a colleague sitting next to me, I had a warm and sunny space. I had a job and coworkers I love waiting on the other end. And following this disappointing event, I had a great conversation about real shit.

I had lots of positives going on, but when the facilitators invited everyone to share their follow-up feelings, I passed. My positive feelings had nothing to do with what just happened. In fact, I felt not positive about that. My nemesis had only one word, “free,” said with a smug smile. And this part of the event always irritates me. It feels like a performance, and an easy line of delineation for who the meditation “worked for” and who it didn’t, aka a line between those who are “in” and those who are “out.” The person who started off by conveying her fragile and unexcited state was yet unchanged as well.

The same day, I went to kundalini, because it had been weeks and I kept making excuses not to go. The movements were physically challenging, and I had fed myself not enough, not nourishing food (see: the two bags of chips I ate for lunch). Also, the class was directly after therapy, so I was already mostly depleted.

Needless to say, it was an off day.

As I gave up midway through almost every exercise, I was surprised to find myself still happy. I thought about how typically, I would have been pissed at my subpar performance. I thought about how annoyed I get when people (usually dudes) are too loud or off-key with their breathing or chanting or singing. Instead, I realized that there were so many off-key singers that even I couldn’t calibrate my voice. I couldn’t even carry a tune for the very basic chants, and yet. How different that I was okay just to show up to class. To be in the room. To be.

At the end of the day, after a full day of being slightly off and when I tried to show up for arguably too much, I was totally accepting my limitations! Killing the mindfulness thing!

Hooray!

If my nemesis ever decides to show up to my precious yoga class, though, I might snap. (And I accept this about myself.)

 

 

*This specific reason for excitement is no longer applicable due to the three-week gap from when I started writing this to the actual completion. Really gotta write more often.

be a better human, books, community, empathy, kindness, librarians, strangers

Hate That Guy

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

Recently, my heart was warmed to be together, in person!, with two friends from high school that I’d lost touch with (plus my BFF). Our four-person group text has been going for about a year, and this re-connection-even by text-has been a source of support and grounding for all of us through what has been a particularly rocky and challenging year. It has helped me particularly to see what amazing, strong, quirky women my childhood friends have become because this reminds me that I have the same strong/quirky woman foundation as they do. Our school taught us to be independent and ourselves, and these women tug me back to these roots. My roots.

The texting was cathartic, it was rejuvenating, it was entertaining, and it was a reminder that none of us have to go through anything alone. To coordinate to be in the same room at the same time, much less for an entire weekend, was stellar. If adulthood is 98% scheduling, we were (at least for one weekend) kickass adults.

We laughed, we cried, we reminisced… about the various poor choices we made, our favorite teachers (hi Jeanne and Tim and David and Psi!) and about our yearbook. I think it should be nationally recognized when high school yearbook staffs are willing to be together in person as adults, because that process could have torn anyone apart. Our three personalities (all stubborn, one more creative and one more dictatorial) clashed like crazy. Senior year was rough, as we struggled to learn the design program, generate a vision and see it through to production, all while managing not to kill each other. It was tense, and I apologized to my co-editors this reunion weekend for being a know-it-all yearbook tyrant.

We made several mistakes with our yearbook (all very obvious in print) that I regret deeply. This document we created is not perfect. One of the biggest blemishes I did NOT cause, however, was a senior page that took a loooot of creative license. No one else remembered or found this page offensive, but I announced “UGH I hate her for ruining our yearbook.”

My friend, not a saint but not NOT a saint, looked at me with such confused sadness, and it shriveled me and my childish tendency to react with anger and judgment. Of course I don’t hate her for any reason, much less a page of a book from 13 years ago.

This tendency shows up though! The one DJ on my favorite radio station (hate her), when people bypass traffic and merge at the front of the line (HATE THEM), There are plenty of individual customers who come into the library who cause the collective boiling of staff blood. Whether this is because they make inappropriate comments, corner us and keep us pinned down with their seemingly endless questions that we answer over and over and over again as we try to exit, or let their five-year-old run unattended through the library or plopped down in front of a computer for hours on end…. but that is just one person.

In addition to the above highly irritating behaviors with every member of the staff, one particular evening, this one particular man tried to guess my religion (continually naming varying sects of Christianity) despite my (I thought) clear nonverbal communication to discontinue doing so. I believe people should not ask this of strangers, nor should they guess. It is, to my common sense, rude and invasive.

This man cornered my coworker last week and she literally disappeared for 40 minutes. I could not believe the audacity of this dude, and when she came back, I let her know.

I hate that guy! (I continued, near-ranting, for an uncomfortable amount of time.)

She interrupted at times to say “well, I think he actually needed the help today” and when I finally paused for breath, she told me that one of his sons had just died, at age 27, from an infection that started from a broken arm.

Fuck.

I almost cried: of sadness for him, of disappointment in myself. It was almost comical, how riled up I got on this, of all days to get riled up about the guy.

My coworkers did not appear to think I was a horrible person (though I had my doubts). The book I am reading (and have been since April, slowly digesting its wonder) gave me exactly what I needed. The first page I opened to talked about how bodhisattvas are said to be enlightened because they are fully compassionate, and that rather than berating ourselves, we ought to channel the negativity. I thought “May all circumstances serve to awaken compassion” summed it up nicely.

READ THIS BOOK, DAMN IT. (Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha) by Tara Brach.

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Soooooo moral of the story is to “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Obvious enough, but habit makes it SO hard to implement. Change requires examining habits with a microscope, at the time they occur, and pausing enough to make a conscious choice rather than falling for the default setting.

My default is to say I HATE THAT GUY/GIRL, so that’s what I am working on, because hating isn’t a good feel. One place I might start is by using mindfulness/boundaries: if I mindfully observe that someone is making me feel uncomfortable with invasive personal questions, I need to verbalize some variation of the words “your question is personal, and I will not answer it.” At work, maybe even followed with “is there something library-related I can help you with?” And in general, checking myself before I wreck myself.

anxiety, home, stuff

Never Moving Again

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

Due to a confluence of factors, I haven’t written in forever. First and foremost of the obstacles is twofold; I moved, and I currently have not purchased an internet service as a social experiment. The moving itself was excruciatingly drawn out, lapsed two weekends where I was committed to other things with no time to physically relocate items, and coincided with some heavy relational stuff (annoying, pesky emotions, ugh). My cat children were FREAKED out and though it took them at least a week to get used to the new place and stop being so on edge, it took me even longer.

As for the internet, I know you’re judging and saying to yourself that this is a thing I need in my home. Admittedly, it is inconvenient not to be able to watch Netflix in my home. However, I am looking at a computer screen all day, so I’m making do with my data plan for what I need to accomplish online and my actual hobbies (writing letters, reading/audiobooks, and – new one! – essential oils). It is completely okay. At least, for now, when it is still passably warm to sit outside on campus on my lunch break and watch The Good Place. It is inevitable (especially since I am never moving again) that I’ll get it installed, but it’s an experiment in the meantime.

And yeah, now that I have been in there a month and a half and everything has its place and I’m used to the light in the mornings and the weird sounds the doors make, my place is perfect. Of course there are minor improvements I want to make, but this apartment is MINE and only mine, for the first time ever. That is crazy! This time last year, I could only have dreamed this, and I am grateful and excited that it is real and here. Stability, here I come! Independence! Other positive nouns!

This dwelling is lovely and perfect, and because it is great and the move was torturous, I never want to move again.

Ever.

Moving is the worst! Touching EVERYTHING I own, which is not a ton because I am only one person, but yet still somehow neverending, the packing, the unpacking, the lifting of all the heavy items, the inevitable shoddy packing that leads to something unessential breaking…. That was all too much already, but I also had no furniture, so whenever I found one item I wanted, I needed to acquire a vehicle and a human to help me obtain that one item. Rinse and repeat, for every single piece of furniture I needed. I am blessed to have amazing friends, two of whom live a neighborly distance away, and they were fantastic. I still felt guilty asking them to take their time to help me, and I felt sad that there is no reliable, caring human man around to help me with what I need. Acquiring what I needed sparked HIGH anxiety and an EXTREME sense of aloneness. Every single time.

Ok, so clearly NEVER is an exaggeration. But it was all so heavy! And I didn’t help myself out with the timing. The first weekend after I got the keys, I worked all weekend, at our yearly event that is one of my favorite days of the whole year (yay!). After that shift (TMI alert) I went to Urgent Care for a UTI (OUCH). The next weekend, my best friend visited for a musical festival we bought tickets to in the first quarter of the year and were hugely looking forward to (yay!). That weekend, since it was on the beach, I wore flip flops, and ended up getting plantar fascitis (OUCH OUCH OUCH).

The two mental health days I took during this time were true to their names. I was going to lose my mind, and my body was protesting how hard it was working. My feet literally gave up and just told me to lay low for a while. Driving to purchase a couch and loveseat on what would come to be the day I learned to measure the doorway for any potential furniture acquisitions, with aching feet and a desire to have somewhere for me, my cats and our guests to sit, the song “One Foot” by Walk the Moon played on the radio. Kismet!

I only had one working foot at the time! But all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other. It was a good reminder. I got through the day due to A+ friendos who helped me lift the love seat and didn’t (verbally or in my presence, though I wouldn’t blame them 🙂 judge me or criticize when the couch would not fit through the doorway.

Long story short, I love my friends and my loveseat, and someone from Freecycle got a free, gently used couch.

Moving is hard, and the metaphors are too easy. Confronting/facing every item in my possession and figuring out if it is serving me/if it can stay. Taking inventory and doing the heavy lifting, at least until I am a devoted minimalist and don’t have any possessions (unlikely based on so many facts).

“Never moving again” does sound lazy, though. And I will, I know, because not moving for too long means not growing/changing/advancing. For now, I appreciate the ability to sit tight, think/reflect/find a partner (and I promise, write more) about the big stuff, and nurture my tiny roots in this place. I’ll get to the movement, right after I put my feet up.

anxiety, career, community, coworkers, information, joy, reading, strangers

Balance.. and working

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

Not surprisingly, this is not the first time I’m writing about balance. People with anxiety know that balance is essential to avoid spinning out into spirals. I knew August would be tough, work-wise, because I accepted a lot of extra night/weekend shifts at the library. I just counted, and I worked 39 shifts over the course of the month (aka going from full-time job to part-time job multiple times, plus the beloved weekend shifts). Sometimes when I’m in self-pitying moods, I think I work a second job because I like to whine and tell everyone how hard I work. I have to remind myself that in reality, I love both my jobs, and up until recently I haven’t really had that much other stuff going on that I would rather be doing.

I know I did it to myself. I overcommitted, thinking it would balance itself out with the fact that I didn’t really work at the library in June. And now that August is over, maybe balance is achieved! The extra income is nice, and for every customer who makes my skin crawl, there is an equal if not greater than pleasant customer who knows my name or otherwise warms my heart.

And so without further ado, picture the following scenarios (presented in a glorified list). One bad for one good.. or maybe the scales tip slightly toward the pleasant.

Bad: when on the third day of working 5-9 after working 8:30-4:30, a guy who feels he is your friend (he is not) lets his young child continue on his way out (to dick around and be generally unsupervised) in order to tell you a longwinded tale of who from church asked him to look up the lyrics and sheet music (you don’t care), after you have already spent at least 15 minutes of your life helping him find this sheet music and him asking if he can just take a photo of it and print it and you say no, that is a copyright violation so he needs to buy it and he asks you to buy it and he can pay you and you say no while silently begging him to walk away and instead, like you hoped he wouldn’t but knew he would, he tells you what religion he is and asks you about yours. You wonder why people still think this is appropriate to ask someone who is on the clock at their job. Thankfully, he only guesses, and does not do so correctly, and then he leaves.

Good: when a high schooler who you knew as an awkward seventh grader walks towards you at the desk and greets you by name even though you haven’t worked at his school for two years, and generally teens don’t A) remember you or B) approach you even if they do. You talk to him about his favorite teachers from the last year and you think about the difference between a seventh grader and a tenth grader and how crazy that that difference happens in just over two years.

Bad: when people uncomfortable with technology call in to ask how to use the technology, and get confused and angry at you when you tell them the proper buttons to press, and they have to hang up to perform the action because they are trying to do it on their phone. You wonder why these people don’t come into the library to ask when you know they are otherwise capable of leaving their homes.

Good: when you help the upbeat youngish dad who works at the wine store use Adobe Acrobat (the fancy kind) to edit his visa application to visit China, and he is so effusively appreciative the day of, plus when you are working next, he returns and tells you he had his in-person interview at the consulate and everything is IN and approved and thanks you again, and smiles even bigger whenever he sees you in the wine store or he is in the library, like you are acquaintance-friends (you are!).

Bad: when customers overhear, misunderstand, and jump into your conversations with other customers, resulting in lengthy, factually inaccurate conversations you attempt to thwart but continue nevertheless about parking validation, or how to download ebooks, or any number of topics that you know you and your colleagues will have to set right, one person at a time.

Good: speaking of setting things right, you get the opportunity to give that woman the correct information about smartphone-less Uber, despite your still wondering why she thinks it will be different than a traditional taxi service, but you also give her some resources for concierge services that may help her get errands done.

Good: when an email in the general staff account is from an airline representative who found a library book in the customer lounge and they want to know how to get in touch with the customer to mail it back (bless their heart). Then, a week later, your boss emails you that there is a piece of mail for you and you are baffled until you go in and open it and see that the airline representative has mailed the book to you, and then you go show everyone working the book and use it as evidence that not all people suck and your coworkers view it the same way.

Bad: the sad feeling you get when you are near the smelly people or the people whose brains limit what they can do in the world, people who you help apply for a job on Indeed.com and you have to direct them exactly where to click, and then again to instruct them to click.

Mediocre: you walk back to the desk after walking around at close to find a note that reads “You’re Doing Great!” and you, knowing how few people are in the building at that time of Friday night, wonder whether a coworker or the teen boy you startled by opening the bathroom door just as he was exiting to announce that the library is closing or the guy you just helped with uploading his resume into Indeed left it. You identify that several of these options are more harmless than others. But like, you bring it home because it kind of makes you feel nice, when you think about how this person could have said this to your face but instead chose to write it on a slip of paper.

Great: when a woman comes in and asks you to find a “camp” she and her sister attended in the 1950s when she was 5 and her sister was 8 and after speaking with her a little while, you learn that this took place when their mother had TB, and while she recovered, her young children listened to stories and ran around and made fond memories of their time at camp, and then you find a New York Times article from 1955 (because bless the NYT and their archives) that identifies exactly what this place from 60 years ago that this woman never asked her mother about as an adult and now doesn’t have the option. You discuss that neither of you would ever have known that such a place was called a “preventorium” and you marvel about language and how even medical, scientific vocabularies change so much, much less how these topics are handled and treated. And you print out the article for her, because this is just really fucking cool, and she is from out of town so you never see her again but she asks your name, introduces herself, and tells you she really appreciates it.

So, yes, morale can be low at times, but you decide that there is a kind of expertise in shaking off the weird interactions and starting over with the next person. And there is a special kind of bond when someone really needs something and you’re the one to provide it. And at the very least, there is something extremely human in how people navigate the weird space that is a library, which is to say: community.

books, career, community, coworkers, let it go, librarians

Let It Burn

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

On the second-most-scenic drive home, there is an empty plot of land where a house burned down. I had my eye on this house for a long while, since I used to live just down the road from it. I had my eye on it because A) it was closer to the road than the other houses, and because it was falling apart, and because it gave me the itch: the feeling I get when I look at a mess that I want to organize–target, acquired. Get rid! This eyesore has got to go! Raze it and start over!

Because it was so on display, I clocked and  every imperfection of the house, from the boarded and broken windows to the caving-in roof, to the decomposing porch. Yes, I wondered why/when its owners had abandoned it, but more than anything I could see it wasn’t helpful.

Whenever long-dormant buildings like this burn down, I assume someone set it on fire. And I certainly don’t blame them. The only thing stopping me from doing so with every dilapidated building I see is the threat of arson charges. There is something cleansing in the removal from the landscape a house that no longer houses. Rather than gradually eroding one board at a time, an event happens to reset. To clear, remove that which is no longer serving its purpose.

—-

My attitude at work, if not my attitude in general, has started to smoke. Historically, I was the student/professional to volunteer for extra responsibilities, to speak up and often and generally help out. At some point during or after grad school, I became jaded and resentful. I would still offer to cover shifts for my coworkers, but I did not put in more work than was strictly necessary.

In preparation for the anniversary of the moon landing, a coworker had created a book list of related topics (space travel, biographies of astronauts, etc.) and as she hustled around talking about her to-do list with the last 30 minutes we were open, I volunteered to help put up her display. Also historically, I love creating book displays, but when I told her this and she told me I could make one literally whenever I felt like it by signing up to do so, I recoiled. Me!?! No. I do not extra-librarian. Not anymore.

This reaction was bratty and entirely based in habit. I paused, I examined my reaction, and determined that I had strayed too far from who I am. I am a person who volunteers. I am a joiner, and a doer of the things. Even if the things are extra-librarian-y. Just because I don’t have the job title doesn’t mean I should reject it.

So I set that attitude up in flames, and don’t you know it, there was an opening to make a book list & display almost immediately. And a new project committee to join (and yes, I took my lunch break from my main job to attend meetings for it). Maybe a lot of work, but worth the reinvestment into my department and my librarian-ity, and the idea that I can be happy and contribute at work.

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I remember the day that abandoned house burned down; I couldn’t believe that I happened to take that route that day. Often, I avoid it in the name of expediency; the flat, strip-mall-infested route seems more direct, and in exchange for the red lights and concrete, doesn’t take me past my old apartment with its history. Driving through the faint smoke cloud, I reasoned it had to have burned within the past day. Yellow caution tape surrounded the property. The chimney, brick as it was, was the only recognizable piece still standing. I was overjoyed that it had come down, and curious/excited about the possibility for the site’s future occupants.

With this unwanted, not cared for, not useful structure gone, there is so much space for new creation. It is my hope that as my career smoke clears, I’ll use what serves me to rebuild too.