Also: what is the best memory you have of a library? ā”
this is such a great question! honestly, childhood memories might be the best for me. i tried to think of some i have of at the library at my school, but i only really associate it with stress, which is unfortunate. hahahaha i also used to go to the library to sleep in high schoolā¦but that has nothing at all to do with this question, because nothing about high school (or fine, very little) qualifies as a āgood memory.ā
my babysitter used to take me to the library all the time as a very small child. my mom wasnāt around a whole lot then, so she (the babysitter) became intensely important to me. man, i always think of my mom having been a really good mom when i was a little kid, but the more i think about it, the more i realize i donāt have many (or like, any?) childhood memories of her before i was around 8 years old. all of my earliest memories have to do with connie (that wasāuh, probably still isāher name).
ā¦this ask is turning out to be a lot more revealing than i had anticipated. suddenly my constant need to seek out parental figures is making a hell of a lot more sense :P
ANYWAY right, the question. the actual answer is probably not that interesting because itās very banal, but you did ask. i just have this memory, a little fuzzy but parts of it are clear (or maybe itās a conglomerate memory of a span of time, and iām only shaping it into a single day in retrospect, who knows), of discovering books for the first time on my own. being in the library, in the stacks, skimming through all these different worlds, putting them down and picking them back up again. thatās still one of my favorite things to do. and i remember her taking me to the lake after (actually called āsparkle lake,ā i shit you not; i can take a picture of the sign if you donāt believe me :P), and just exploring the little woods around it, all my childlike wonder perfectly intact. i remember being in her car, eating the cookies she gave me, being warm, happy, safe. she used to tell me storiesāendlessly. and i ate them up, voraciously, was always begging for more. she never seemed to run out of them. around her, i could breathe them like air.
hahahah okay that actually had very little to do with being in a library. but what were you expecting, have i ever actually directly answered a question iāve been asked in my entire fucking life, i think not. anyway. jeez. itās only right now, sitting down writing this, that iām realizing that she really made me who i am today, much more than my real mother, much more than any other one single person. she moved away when i was around 6 years old, and i was utterly devastated. it was as if, you know, my own mother was moving away and iād never see her again. (funnily enough, itās around that age i start having memories that involve my actual mom.) i mean, like, really, seriously grieving, for actual years, i think, after she moved. we visited each other every year or so, but years are light-years in child-yearsāand of course that was nowhere near enough, not compared with having her around as a constant in my life. um. okay. wow. basically my entire personality makes sense now. that was unexpectedly intense. bet you werenāt expecting THAT :O
