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| kiss me where aphrodite dwells |
The map first caught my attention. Where the hell is the Ukraine anyway? I saw a show once (my tv habits are so few and far between that having seen a show is like having taken a weekend trip and returning home with photographs and stories to share.) about a city in ___________?, an emerging tourist town not nearly as well known as others. The Ukraine sits atop the black sea. I had it confused with estonia, latvia. "show me where you have been." pointing to the map, asking a friend. As if by pointing to a colored blotch, covered with dots and jumbled letters I cannot pronounce, bordered by the color blue, I could somehow transport myself there. "yes, I've been to the Ukraine" (wait. no. actually, i just stood in a grand library once, by the pedestal, showered in filtered sunlight, in front of the spiraling stairway, near the stacks and stacks of civil war books from which an etched man in uniform seemingly watched my "international travels"....i stood there and pointed to a map.) In the hallway of our San Jose, Costa Rica house, that sat atop a hill, in the neighborhood La Colina, from which we saw, heard, then felt, earthquakes coming as the tin roofs rattled in a wave that finally shook us, my father placed a world map. It spanned nearly floor to ceiling and the length of the hall. The world in my hall.
I cried after I first visited the Pope County Library, a palpable measure of the stagnation of ideas, the "stuck in time" nature of thought life that surrounded me. The children's books, faded, out of touch, from another time, couldn't even draw a book lover in. We went twice that I can recall in the two years we lived there, a drastic change from our several times weekly habits in Columbia, SC.
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| up and down we'd go |
There, upon stepping inside the sliding doors, our minds would come alive. The hallway flanked by four stories of windows on the left and a drop off to the children's room below, prompted repeated "no running in the library" reminders. But I always let them dangle briefly from the large metal reinforcement structures that reached from the glass windows to the shining tile, eyes bulging, upside down smiles, hair like gold flagella reaching for the floor.
Yesterday, slightly dressed up for the occassion, in my dress, I toured the fayetteville library. Eyes teared up then and every time in the less than 24 hours I have recalled the place--yes, even now. The combination of light, beams, rows of books, murmurs, demographics, the occassional coughing that echos and reverberates from the lungs near the chair on the east side, to the ears on my head on the north side. The scent of flipped pages softly emanating throughout. The anticipation so heavy on every aisle, waiting to be opened. Once, at a tour of the Rosewood Plantation in Louisiana, a guide lifted an enourmous heavy book into the air and with mystery and awe in her voice made a statement I've mocked heartily for years, "these books contain some of the most beautiful pictures ever seen. they haven't been opened in over a century." um. why.
Yes, I am in love. The library, my aphrodite. These books speak my language---time and physical touch. Hold me they say. Flip through my pages. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Devour me. I know you're busy, just stop by, another time you can linger. I have missed you, darlings. And the temple where you dwell.
