I forgot how much I love to read.
When I was younger, I remember being such a bookworm. If I wasn’t reading a book, I was attempting
to write one. During summer vacations,
mom would take us to the library to get our summer reading books, and I’d
always take out a few extra. I remember
one summer, the West Boylston library offered raffle tickets to kids for every
book they read. The walls were plastered
with the great prizes like a Skip It and a bunch of other crap I’m sure my
parents didn’t want hanging around. I
read so much that summer, I think I earned around 20 raffle tickets (we all know
how easy it is to bribe me with things). I wanted to win one of those damn prizes so badly–
but I didn’t win a single thing! (Tiny disclosure: I do remember a few books
being awful, so after a few chapters I skipped to the last one and read it
until the end so I knew what happened.
Seeing I cheated a couple times, it’s probably best I didn’t win. You know, cheater cheater never beater.. or however it goes).
Although I didn’t get the Skip It, I was still a winner
because the sneaky promotion only fed my love of reading. Sadly, somewhere
along the line, my passion for the pages faded.
High school book reports became chores and I began to favor journalism
over literature, which carried over into college. Nothing turned me off more
from reading than my British Literature class and my three-hour long
Shakespeare lecture. I hated it so much I tried to drop my English major senior
year, but my advisor wouldn’t let me (Thank you, Fern Johnson!). Once I graduated, I pretty much read nothing
but magazines, save for the occasional book or two (and whatever was forced
upon me in grad school).
Until yesterday. I
decided that after four years in this city, it was time to get a Chicago Public
Library card. The first time I tried getting one, they asked me for a photo ID,
some mail that was recently postmarked and a DNA sample. Ok, not a DNA sample
but I was scarred by the experience and never went back.
Until yesterday. It was
much more pleasant experience this time. Maybe it was because I went to one of
the branches in my neighborhood instead of the enormous, albeit gorgeous,
building downtown with the gargoyles on top of it. Within five minutes of arriving, I showed my
proof of residency, signed a paper and was allowed access to the books upstairs.
It wasn’t until then that I realized I hadn’t been in a
library for so long, I forgot how to use it!
I highly doubted that they had a card catalog, so I just walked up and
down the aisles of books, grateful that it was well-lit with natural sunlight
and didn’t smell like an old tomb.
After grabbing a couple books, I headed to get checked
out. I waited to get my card stamped
with the due date, but everything is electronic now. They scanned my books and printed me a
receipt like I had just bought jeans and a t-shirt at the Gap.
I walked out the door proud because I had finally gotten my green
(library) card. And I kind of felt a
little smarter, too. As soon as I got
home, I curled up on my big chair and started reading one of the books – and I didn’t
put it down until way past my bedtime. Although
the book I was reading isn’t exactly War and Peace, it felt great to read
instead of watch re-runs of Chopped and Castle like I usually do after work.
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