Here it be, my new spot:
After the early morning rise, some coffee, and sending The Girl off to school (junior high! The bookbags are so huge!), I’m back to packing my lunch and spending the day at the library. This is my favorite parking spot. If I get there early enough, I cruise in beneath the olive tree, take a last bite of my breakfast, shut off my phone and haul my things inside.
I’ve written before about the value of discipline and hard work and finding the right “spot.” I drafted most of This Lovely Life in bed, but did the hard work of revision in this same library. Every day, I packed my lunch and every day, for as long as I had, I pored over manuscript pages, clipping, moving, rummaging, recreating. When the book came out, I took myself to my local independent bookstore, bought a copy and then dropped that same copy off at the library in donation for all the peace and quiet and concentration its halls had given me.
I’m usually there the whole day when Josie is in school, working, getting caught up on my teaching duties, studying for the courses that have me back in school. By the time I leave, I’ve been so much inside my own mental space I often don’t remember where I’ve parked the car. When I think about the history of my inner life, everywhere I look there have been libraries: the one at the Pompidou Center where I read every English language book they owned in a six-month bout of intense homesickness; my high school library where the second story was nothing more than a three foot wide loop that ran round the inside of the building, looking down on the floor below. The half a dozen libraries I came to know and love at my alma mater, each one serving a different purpose.
During the semester, my students often grow weary of hearing me extol the virtues of the library. Me? I honestly can’t say enough about how it feels to have your head bent over a book or a manuscript, with books and silence all around, and this, for hours at a stretch.
Comments 11
Silence,unfamiliar in these parts.However,as I clicked on your picture,what struck me and was evoked within me, was how I would love to find a tree,with overflowing branches and a grassy spot,to plop myself and create my own personal,”library”.The air,the breeze(if it would ever cool down!),the quiet … sounds wonderful and extremely elusive at this moment in my life.Love to you and thinking of you and your silence.
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 8:38 am ¶Oh, how I admire your discipline!
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 12:04 pm ¶I so admire your discipline and worth ethic. I’m in agreement about libraries; in fact, I often have to pee I get so excited when I go into them. I can still remember the first library of my childhood, the wood shelves, the mystery of so many books to read, the quiet, the sound of a book being pulled out, the feel of it all.
Thanks for stirring those memories up — and happy writing!
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 1:11 pm ¶That must not be the library I’m thinking of that’s near you, because I don’t recognize that tree, and the lot I’m thinking of doesn’t overlook a place where cars would be parked on the street. Nonetheless, the whole library thing is something that truly resonates with me. Libraries make me happy, and bring me peace. I’m glad you’re back in your library groove.
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 2:11 pm ¶I admire your discipline too. My spot is not quiet, and I often get distracted by others who show up to join me or I allow myself to get sucked into the things that are not priority for me.
I loved when I used to live across the street from the library. I went there for the air conditioning!
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 3:40 pm ¶And remember, it’s where the angels live. . .
xo
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 3:45 pm ¶That sounds dreamy. I love libraries too although I write mostly in coffee shops these days.
Wishing you well.
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 7:19 pm ¶I’m also a lover of libraries. This post evoked so many memories of all the hours spent in my college library! Little else moves me the way silence and being surrounded by books does.
Posted 20 Sep 2009 at 10:47 pm ¶I am grateful for this particular library, for what it has enabled you to share with us. The experience of living in the inner world you describe is something I felt at Paragraph when I was writing there during my sabbatical–some of my peak experiences as a writer happened there. I miss it lots.
Posted 21 Sep 2009 at 6:22 pm ¶I am going to try the library one day a week. It is sometimes too quiet for me, but the calm of it sounds so very appealing. Very impressed by your disciplined routine.
Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 11:18 pm ¶It is great to be back! I am always inspired by your discipline for your writing. You have been working very hard.
Posted 21 Oct 2009 at 4:46 am ¶Post a Comment