Mar11

“i’m a reflection of the community.” tupac shakur

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amidst the more than a million people without power days

our local library

has been opening at 6am

and closing late

acting without anyone asking

as an ad hoc community center

in order to offer

a safe and welcoming haven to all

full of

electricity and books and computers and games and story times

a friend to all ages

stay as long as you like

take as much as you need

on a morning visit

during my current nomadic existence

i sat with 2 high schoolers

an old couple

college roommates

a gaggle of 3 year olds

and a family

all here for the same reasons

a bit of respite

a cup of coffee

a bite to eat

a wealth of good company

a comfortable chair

and

an awful lot of warmth.

—–

“a library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people.

it is a never failing spring in the desert.”
― andrew carnegie

52 responses »

  4. Libraries are changing and adapting but still offer adventure to those in need. Long may they remain as a home for tomes, education and self help and filled with tales of adventure to spur the imagination, thrill and scare generations to come.

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  11. Amazingly, the first thing I did after graduating was to work in a library before qualifying as librarian but jobs then did not materialise and so I drifted off to other pastures but I remember my time in, and the people I worked with, with great affection which is why libraries pop up in my stories quite regularly. Hope you are having a lovely weekend 🙂

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  12. Your library taking up the slack and coming through for so many is a truly lovely image, Beth!
    The humanity of this act of keeping the library open made me smile while thanking my lucky stars that we have electricity still. So sorry, dear. ❤
    The Andrew Carnegie quote does say so much, too. 🙂

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  14. Here in Dakota, we got much the same wind as you, but our power lines are mostly underground, thankfully, so no outages that I know of. As a single person, though, I don’t create enough garbage (well, sometimes with the keyboard, but not always in the rolling trash can, haha) to sufficiently weigh down the trash can, so it was blown over the other night in the street. That usually only happens after it’s been emptied. Was going to text my neighbor “Can I borrow some of your trash,” but it was too late at night, so I just brought the thing back up to the house. It’ll stay frozen and unsmelly for another week. Anyway, I love the idea that the library knew their importance in the community. Luckily they’re locally funded and don’t depend on Congress, right?

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  16. My writers’ club meets at a library, and the librarians are always WONDERFUL to us, so helpful! My grandkids grew up, going to Saturday programs at our local library every week. Right now, our libraries have volunteers offering free tax advice to people. They’re a hub of each community.

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  18. How absolutely wonderful. I love that they just DID it. I’m really sorry to hear that you still don’t have power. That’s a long time. Hope it’s back on soon and your library should win the Good Neighbor Award of the year.

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  22. Pingback: Desert Springs | Kevin Barrett's Blog

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