borrowed books

do you ever think about how great public libraries are

I crack open a new library book as I wait for the train

“Ring shot” by PDjeli Clarke, an alternative-history supernatural novel set in 1920s Macon Georgia, about a group of hunters fighting demons summoned by the KKK.

Today I forgot my bookmark— currently a used and abused plane ticket.

To my delight, I find a ripped plane ticket nestled in a page from a previous loaner.

Aren’t humans adorable?

Strangers share this habit of mine, who I’ve never met and will never know the names of.

I tend to lose bookmarks bought specifically to be bookmarks,

The bookmarks I never lose are the unintended ones— a Kricketot pokeman card I found on my train seat, a lenticular printed card from a bubble tea shop in China, old plane tickets to name a few.

Like a cat’s tendency to play with a random cardboard box or gift wrap ribbon from last Christmas’s presents over their expensive toys or cat tree.

Gratification from buying specific gadgets for every specific task cannot trump the pleasure from using a random object for an unintended purpose. Are we so foolish to believe that one item can only have one purpose? Did we forget the dopamine rush from everyday creativity and problem solving?

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If I was a book I’d want to be a public library book,

I’d get to share my story so many times with so many different people

See different walls, hear different voices and be held by different hands

I treat borrowed book better than the ones I own,

The books I own have ripped covers, the corners are tattered and torn

If I like the book it’ll stay with me forever, shoved into the corner of my bookshelf, revisited only every couple years, if that.

If I don’t care for a book, I sell or donate it.

I wonder if the next owner will notice the pages I underlined, a random rip in a page, or the folded corner.

Did they like the book enough to keep it, or sell or donate it again?

I wonder how a “bad” book feels, being given away over and over again.

Public library books are lucky, they never have to experience being unwanted. It doesn’t matter whether the reader liked them or not, they are always guaranteed a home.

The only books I’ve missed are the ones that don’t belong to me.

Maybe the reason we treat borrowed books better than our own is because they don’t belong to us.

Maybe we are not inherently selfish, and we like sharing things because it makes us feel like we belong to something.

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Uhm. Yeah.

CC xx