Annie Lamott muses about the library

I am going to walk to the library. It's so beautiful out. The hills of my town are lush and green and dotted with wildflowers. The poppies have bloomed, and 5 o'clock is no longer the end of the world. I am going to check out books by P.G. Wodehouse, some Goon Show scripts and a collection of Mary Oliver poems. Libraries actually make me think lovingly of my mother. I am not sure if this will lead me directly to the two tablespoons of forgiveness, but you never know. You take the action, and then the insight follows. It was my mother who taught me how to wander through the racks, and wander through a book, letting them take me where they would. She and my father took me to the library every week when I was little. One of her best friends was the librarian. They both taught me that if you insist on having a destination when you come into a library, you're shortchanging yourself. They read to live, the way they also went to the beach, or ate delicious food. Reading was like breathing fresh ocean air, or eating tomatoes from old man Grbac's garden. My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you could find miracles and truth and you might find something that would make you laugh so hard that you get shushed, in the friendliest way. There was sanctuary in a library, there is sanctuary now, from the war, from the storms of our family and our own anxious minds. Libraries are like the mountain, or the meadows behind the goat lady's house: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library. And I'm going to give them 50 bucks, too, in the name of peace, because their budget will be severely cut back in the name of war.