A SNOWY AFTERNOON - from Life of a Librarian

Just as I pulled into the library parking lot for work yesterday afternoon, snow began to cover everything. The windows in our village library are wonderful for weather-watching, especially if you're stationed at the front desk. Golden leaves in autumn, stormy skies, both rain and snow, and the spring blossoms and great green trees of summer. This snow storm was a beauty.

Not only was the snow lovely, but the colors of winter garb our patrons paraded past the desk seemed so much more vibrant for some reason - as if the clothes were delighted to have snow and bitter cold, all the better to serve their purpose. The children's librarian had set up a little display of all the poor lost mittens, caps, and scarves - and it was fun to see kids searching through them for things they needed back. 

Although I'd been putting off going out to check the outside book drop, by the middle of the afternoon I knew I'd better do it, or I'd have to shovel a path to it. Right at that time, the head librarian asked if I'd take the snow shovel and.....shovel a path: to the two back doors and up the front steps as well. So out I went. I brought in the book drop cart, wiped off the books and stacked them on the clerk desk, went out with the snow shovel, and then the salt....Came back in and started work on the books and videos I'd stacked up, and the ones that had been put in our desk book drops as well.  It was a steady afternoon: steady snowfall, steady stream of materials to be checked-in, steady stream of patrons needing assistance or help checking-out materials. Steady is good. The older I get, the more I get off on steady.

We had a few students there - but not nearly so many as we have on an afternoon after school. Our library is a student-friendly one, and a lovely quiet(most of the time) social place for the whole village, or at least for those who use the library. Since we have a lot of writers and readers here, and a good number of parents who make a regular practice of bringing their children to learn how to use the library, and since we have a meeting room with some pretty interesting talks and events, we're hoppin'.  Yesterday was not so much hoppin' as steady-as-she-goes, until the phone rang around 4:30 with the news that all the libraries in the County system would be closing at 5 pm. That worked for me. I just wanted to go home and light the wood stove, bake some potatoes, and eat, read, and doze.

As we made the announcement and began closing down, there was a feeling of adventure: the roads. My last patron, a young man, told me he works nights in a town about forty miles away. I said, "Better start now!" He looked a little dubious - not at me, I think - but as to whether he'd be  all right. So I said, "Drive safely, now." That seemed to settle him; at least I got a smile out of him. Last patron out, we staffers closed down the building: computers off, money counted, recycling emptied, doors locked & checked, closed signs in place, hours signed out in the book. We went out into the parking lot to wade to our cars, feeling a little more - what would it be, adventurous or courageous? - than usual. We started our engines, then got out to clean windshields - and helped each other remember headlights and tail lights. Good team.

I love working at the library. As wild as my mind and creative life can get, the truth is that I really enjoy repetitive tasks like checking-in materials. Running the send list and marking the holds is still fun for me. Even stamping more green slips and white slips can be fun, because I can do that and people-watch or have a conversation at the same time. Library work is just right for me. It makes me grin. A-B-C-D, 1-2-3, that's me. I enjoy the people and their quests and comments - And I still cherish a hope of one day having my own books on library shelves. It's good, it is so good, to have this part of my life in order right now. I wonder what vista those library windows will offer me tomorrow?

NOTE: This article was first published in Gather in 2007