Library Volunteer

Today I volunteered in the lower school library.  This year, I have started working there every other Tuesday for 30 minutes.  It is such a short time, but I wanted to start small. 

I love libraries.  And a children's library, one geared for the youngest kiddoes, is so inspirational.  The librarians are both wonderful, and I love talking with them and listening to them. It reminds me of the old days, teaching 6th grade English and loving any time I got to hang out in the middle school library.

My 5-year-old son gets to go to the library once a week and check out a book. He did this last year, too, and every afternoon, besides having a new book, he'd have some new facts his librarian/teacher had taught him.  A month ago, he cozied up to me on the couch and said, "Mom, I have a secret for you."

"What?" I asked.

"William Shakespeare," he whispered. Well, he might as well have told me I'd be on the next train to heaven.  I love Shakespeare, and to hear my son say his name... Dreamy.

"Oh? What do you know about him?"

"He wrote movies," he said, seriously, "and he wrote a few plays." I love it.

Last week, he started telling me about Prince Edward abdicating the throne to marry Wallis Simpson.  Last year, he tried to tell me at dinner one night about the "terrasotta soldiers" from China. I had to spend some time on the internet with him to get to the bottom of this mystery, but we finally did find some terraCOTTA soldiers traveling to museums.

His library teacher takes the kids on "journeys" to new countries and different time periods each week, and it is amazing to me what my son retains. What a fun job.

Anyway, back to the library today. I was shelving some books while a third grade class took turns telling ghost stories to each other, and I came across some children's poetry books. There was the usual slew of Jack Prelutsky, but I was reminded of Pat Mora, a Texas poet, and enjoyed flipping through a children's picture book of poetry she wrote.

Just now I looked her up and read a portion of an interview with her (http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html).

She talked about needing "the stillness to explore" and "creating the quiet to write."

I loved that morsel. I need more stillness and quiet. I need them in order to have the mental space and capacity to explore.  But I also can create more quiet. It's hard, but once little people are asleep (or before they wake up), I can create quiet. Or maybe it's less creating quiet and more carving out quiet (recent pumpkin imagery). "Creating" sounds soft, a nice easy lasso of sound to allow quiet.  In my life these days, quiet doesn't come so easily. I need a more ruthless term to get quiet. Carve out the time. Carve out the quiet. Otherwise, it won't happen.