Jinked

I’ve lived in Valparaiso for almost 4 years, and today was the day I finally got my library card.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t used a library since I was in college and that was five years ago. Just walking into one today, seeing all the shelves with books baring the mark of the Dewey decimal system on their spines, it was like coming home.

I used to spend so many hours in the Lowell Public Library when I was a little girl. My mother would have to help me cross the busy street so I could venture off to the library alone. And when I would get ready to come home with a backpack full of books, the nice librarians would let me use the phone to call my mom so she would be there at the busy street once again to help me cross.

It was at the library that I discovered Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones. It was where I also read my first (and last) trashy romance novel, complete with a “thick throbbing member.” I looked at books about ghosts, magic tricks, growing up and witchcraft. I liked those transparencies with the old newspaper articles on them. I loved the sound all the cards in the card catalog would make when I rubbed my thumb over them.

I remember sitting at the catalog computer when it was brand new, thinking it to be the coolest thing ever, searching for fantasy books for hours, trying to find ones I hadn’t already read. At one point I had even lost my library card, but I had the number memorized so I could still reserve books from other libraries in the county. I had my brother’s card memorized too. In fact, it’s his number I remember now and not my own.

Only because it had a song.