I, Freedom

Around St. Patrick's Day, I misplaced a library book and never recovered it. Naturally, I exhausted every possible search area and delayed just as long as I could in hopes that it would turn up in my home or that of a friend. I even had some notion that a Good Samaritan would come upon it in the public place where I must have left it and just turn it in. After all, what would your typical thief on the street want with an old hardcover edition of "The Return Of Sherlock Holmes"? Surely they could not enjoy it for themselves or find a buyer. That hope died along with the rest. Finally I broke down and paid the outrageous cost that the library determined would cover the value of the book and the expenses that replacing it would entail.

Now, I am not so angry as I might be were it some other entity and not the library. To get angry at the library would be unfathomable, like getting angry enough at my mother for bumping into me that I would disown her. Now more than ever, I love the library so dearly that it's difficult to imagine an offense which might turn me against it. That's especially true given the present dire budgetary circumstances. In a way, I feel grateful for the opportunity to serve my library by being gouged on the value of a lost book. Like Liam Neeson's Oskar Schindler, I only wish I could do more.

What also makes things ok is the way I feel now with the burden of the lost book lifted. Ever since mid-March, there has been that burden of a reckoning to come which has make me feel ill at ease when I stepped inside the library or even thought of it. To take the mother example again, it would be as if there were some discord between she and I- some grievance she might have against me that she might let slide again and again but that I would be sensitive to all the same. Such a thing is very unpleasant, and I'm very glad that I can release that anxiety (as there are fresh anxieties requiring my attention).

The trouble isn't quite over. Evidently, I must for the first time renew the library card which I signed up for less than two months after I had come to live in this city for the first time. I will go down there sometime tomorrow with my wallet, a piece of business mail with my name and address on it, and a personal check just to be sure. Those items will help me prove that I live here. With all that done, I will once again plunge into my beloved library, hoping and praying that they will be able to weather the economic storm and continue to nourish my intellect and spirit.