Working as a librarian, I have had the opportunity to help people in many ways. Finding books, of course, magazines and newspapers and essays and poems and short stories and picture books and chapter books and biographies and how-to books and novels to scratch that “I want to read something really, really good” itch. Not to mention resources for research papers. I’ve helped patrons look for apartments, post their antiques for sale on Ebay, and find a solution to every conceivably imaginable “how do I do this on the computer?” question. And the printing! Photos from Facebook, divorce papers, tax forms, homework assignments, emails, resumes, obituaries. I’ve helped lost children find their moms and lost parents find their children. Sometimes patrons confuse the library for the phone directory, so I’ve looked up a bajillion different phone numbers. I’ve helped photocopy and scan. I’ve walked patrons to their call numbers hundreds of times. I’ve broken up arguments and been shouted at and once or twice shouted back. I have listened to people’s stories—so many different stories.
(Sometimes being a librarian is fairly similar to being a bartender, without the booze.) I’ve sent homeless men out the door with my worry. I’ve shown teenagers to the pregnancy section and hoped my body language spoke the compassion I felt for them. I’ve talked my librarian friends through their various crises. (As they have done for me.) I’ve helped bleeding patrons and strung out patrons but, luckily, never any puking patrons (one of the reasons I’m glad to work on the grown up side of the library). I’ve answered countless reference questions, some of them involving actual books.

I’ve been privileged to match the exact right book to the exact right patron and then had them come back and tell me thank you.

Last week, I had the opportunity to help in a way I never have before. A patron in a wheelchair, who had no legs, asked me if I would plug him in. He rolled over to the outlet and walked me through plugging his electric chair into the wall (various cords and electric boxes were required) so he could charge. I made sure he had something to read while his chair charged and he thanked me and I went back to my desk with a lump in my throat, feeling changed. There are many gratitudes I felt welling up behind that lump: that I have legs and can walk (and run and hike!). That technology exists to help people like him. That he asked me to help him so calmly and confidently, which suggests that other people have also helped him. That he asked me to help him; maybe this seems strange but it felt like an honor.

And it made me grateful for libraries.

I have been thinking about the importance of libraries since National Library Week. Ivanka Trump tweeted something inane about celebrating libraries and librarians and it made me fairly furious, seeing as how trump wants to cut off IMLS, which is the source of the majority of libraries’ funding. (Please, read this article with responses to her tweet, just so the combined outrage of many librarians can let you know that we’re not only introverts with our noses behind our books.) 

I hardly need POTUS’s daughter (or the jerk and his blind-sighted, backward-thinking, narrow-minded budget) reminding me that communities are valuing libraries less and less. Because in addition to helping people use the library every time I go to work, I also am told, in different ways but at almost every shift, that libraries are kind of lame. Patrons complain about hold lists, slow computers, damaged books, books we don’t own yet. They get annoyed at displays for different reasons. They say rude things like “this place is a dump” and “I only come here if I’m desperate” and “thank God I can afford to buy most of my own books.” And then there are the constant limitations that librarians and libraries are constantly bumping up against, because we only have a small budget to make this whole show work, and that means cutting corners when we wish we didn’t have to.

It’s not only inside the library, though, that I’m reminded. The world at large does this very well. I was once at a doctor’s appointment and the physician, upon hearing that I worked at the library, said “wait, the library is still open? I didn’t think people read actual books anymore, I thought they just read Kindles.” Or the city election a few years ago, when the good citizens of my town elected a vociferously anti-library person into the city council, which felt like the whole population marked the “libraries don’t matter” checkbox on their ballot. Or the way the publishing industry is declining. Or the way that intelligence, understanding, and learning are less important than wealth and body type and entertainment value.

So when trump’s budget plan included that IMLS cut, I wished that people would notice, but I didn’t expect anyone but the librarians would. I mean, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could have a march that was just about funding for the arts? (The NEA is just as important as the IMLS.) We could wear, I don’t know, books on our heads maybe, and think of the poster opportunities! But not many besides the librarians even really noticed.

Which brings me back to the legless man in the wheelchair at my library. Which brings me to me kneeling down and crawling around his wheelchair to get it all plugged in. Which brings me to knowing, and to wishing that the world at large could know, just how much libraries are not only about books.

Libraries, at their core, are about people.

And quite often they are about saving people, in both big and small ways.

A library saved me once, when I was an angry punky goth kind of girl, sluffing school because I couldn’t bear to walk into those high school doors. Sometimes I’d leave and drive around aimlessly, but sometimes I went to the library. No one else in the world knew where I was, except for the librarians, who left me alone. I’d sit somewhere and look out the window and read, and for a little while I’d feel a sort of peace wash over me. In the library, in my rebellious black phase, I felt safe.

Teenagers are saved with books that give them information about their problems—cutting and drinking and yes, sometimes unintended pregnancies. The elderly are saved with large-print books that bring them company and stories and happiness. Children are saved by beginning their literacy journey at the libraries. The unemployed use our computers to find jobs. The ill use our databases to find answers. The homeless use our couches to rest.

Libraries are about people.

So today, I am issuing a challenge. If you are at all civic-minded. If you care about libraries at all. If you know your senator’s number. Please make some noise. Write a blog post about why you love your city library. Write a Facebook status about why you love libraries. Post a photo on Instagram of the books you have checked out right now. Draw attention to how libraries influence your life for the better.

And then call your government representatives.

Let them know that defunding libraries is unacceptable. Let them know that libraries matter. Let them know that they don’t only matter to librarians, but to communities. To individuals who use them in a million different ways. To people who need help in a thousand different forms.

Libraries matter.

Let’s save them!

#savethelibraries

The cover blurb on my (library) copy of Maggie O'Farrell's novel This Must Be the Place​ is by Richard Russo, an author I don't particularly love, except I love what he said about her book, that it "deserves to be her breakout book." I totally agree, as she is an author who I love but who no one else seems to know.

(Aside from the people to whom I've raved about her books.)

Her book The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox might just be in my top-twenty books-of-all-time list. And The Hand that First Held Mine is not very far behind. She does the historical/contemporary blend, where the two stories weave together in a way you didn't expect, so well. Better, I think, than Kate Morton (whose last book, The Lake House, was good but the twist-it-all-together-at-the-end was just too convenient for me). Plus I like her writing style quite a bit.

This Must Be the Place is about Claudette Wells, a movie star who one day vanishes from her life to escape to an Irish farmhouse (swoon, books set in Ireland) and Daniel Sullivan, a linguist who accidentally discovers Claudette's hiding place when he's driving around Ireland trying to find his grandfather's long-lost ashes.

This book is all over the place, but in the very best ways. Part of it is an auction catalog of the items Claudette left behind. Part of it—the bit with Daniel's estranged teenage daughter—feels like a really good YA novel. It moves back and forth between Claudette's history and Daniel's. Plus there are clever little linguisty-asides that I highly enjoyed.

It's not really a twist-it-all-together-at-the-end sort of book. The past/present stories don't literally connect. But they do connect in an insight for Daniel that is the heart of the story (and reminded me just the tiniest bit of A God in Ruins). He is thinking about his choices and where they led him and how Claudette is his "unavoidable constant" but, with a few small changes, "how different it all might have been, how minuscule the causes and how devastating their effects."

Even though some fairly devastating things happen.

To explain much more would spoil the story, so I'm just going to throw this out there. If you like books set in Ireland and/or London, if you like books about actresses (in general I don't, but I'm glad I made the exception for this one; I'll likely always make an exception for Maggie O'Farrell), if you like books that explore relationships and how they work (and don't work) and how past ones influence current ones, all mixed up with some lovely writing, then I think you'll love this book, too.

You, me, and Richard Russo.

A few weeks ago, I was at the scrapbook store, and I started chatting with one of the employees. She told me that she doesn’t scrapbook much anymore, because all of her kids are grown and out of the house. This kind of surprised me because A—I still have tons of stories I haven’t scrapbooked about all of my kids, even the ones who are grown and out of the house and B—where in the scrapbooking rule book does it say a person needs kids in order to scrapbook?

I suggested to her that she could scrapbook about herself and she said “I don’t know, that feels kind of selfish, doesn’t it?”

Ah—there’s the rub. If we scrapbook for our kids, we are doing a service for someone else, right? But if we scrapbook about ourselves, who are we taking care of?

Ourselves?

Maybe. And why is that wrong? Why can’t we take care of ourselves?

When did our stories stop becoming important? When we became mothers?

I believe that no one’s story ever stops mattering. If you don’t have kids—your story matters. If you’re single—your story matters. If you’re a mom and/or a wife, your story matters.

Partly, for me, this is true because of one of the reasons I scrapbook: I wish I knew more about my ancestors, especially the women. How did my grandma deal with her endometriosis, with having babies during WWII, with her son joining the navy? What was her favorite perfume? How did she feel about her body? What was her favorite dessert to bake? How did she feel on the day I was born? There are uncountable questions I wish I had answers to, not just from her but from my other grandma, and from my great grandmothers as far back as I know. I’m not sure that everyone has this feeling, but it makes me feel a specific sort of loneliness, which is both sad and a little bit angry that they didn’t write down anything. Anything. And that feeling is partly why I scrapbook, both about my kids and about myself: because maybe one day a granddaughter will want to know more about her dad, or a great-grandson might want to know about his grandma, maybe someone will need to know, will long to know like I do, some details about the people who came before, and there’ll be some scrapbooks to read and then that person won’t have to feel that sad/angry feeling I have.

But even if you don’t have anyone coming after you, your story is still inherently valuable. You lived. You were here on this earth and so your story matters, too.

I mostly scrapbook about my kids. I probably make about 4-6 layouts a year about myself. But, I do scrapbook my stories. I’ve made layouts about my childhood memories and experiences, my education, races I’ve run in. I’ve made layouts about things I love and why I love them. I’ve made layouts that are about my own reactions to Christmas (rather than my children’s). About my relationships and friendships, about trips I’ve taken and hikes I’ve completed.

I’ve got one in my head that’s about my favorite brands of running clothes—I just have to collect a few more tags.

The layouts about me just get stuck in a brown leather album. But I’m also working on two separate albums that I update once a year:

1. My birthday album. This has year-in-review layouts with a photo of my around my birthday and then some thoughts. Some of them are life-right-now snippets. Some of them are deeper thoughts. I got this idea from another scrapbooker somewhere—I’m not 100% sure where, but she started hers when she turned 40. I didn’t, but I did happen to make a layout about myself on my 41^st birthday, and then I made this one about turning 44 (I wrote the journaling right after my birthday but only got around to making the layout last week; I wanted to finish it before my (yikes!) 45^th birthday), so I think I might go back and see if I can make something out of all the birthdays in my 40s. I want to add one layout every year to this album until I’m too old to scrapbook.
   
   
   
   
2. My Thanksgiving album. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, but it’s the one of which usually take the fewest pictures. Sometimes I have stories to tell about my kids’ Thanksgiving experiences, but I always have my thoughts. So I started with last Thanksgiving and again, I’m going to add to this every year, an album full of my Thanksgiving stories.
   

And OK: maybe it is sort of…presumptuous of me to think that someone in the future will care to know those things about me. But, you know…I actually like going back and looking at my layouts. You don’t just forget stuff about your kids, you forget it about yourself, too, and it’s nice to have a record of some of the little details.

So, that’s sort of a long answer to that salesclerk’s question: No, I don’t think it’s selfish to scrapbook about yourself. No one else can tell your stories but you. I hope you’ll tell them! And if you are wanting some other ideas and examples, please check out this post on my friend Mandy's blog, Turquoise Avenue. Happy scrapping!