Library Talks

Hi, loves! Happy Wednesday. It's so cold here today--tights, arm warmers, and scarf weather--and I'm busy in the school library where all the books are. "Library-ing," I think, is my new favorite hobby.

library-ing [verb]: to journey through the aisles of a library on a quest for interesting book titles, tragic romances, beautiful anthologies, and anything else that might suit your fancy

I know I've written about this before, but since coming to college, the library universe that is available to me has grown significantly.  The high school library was wonderful, but it didn't have the same old-book feeling that the college one does.  The sheer number of books is  somewhat overwhelming at first, but it's motivated me to learn the library's catalog system (still working on it!), and I highly recommend library-ing to anyone who's in the need of a cheer-up or a mental health break. Recent library-ing finds include The Awful Rowing Toward God by Anne Sexton, which includes some of the most magical and tortured poems I've ever read, and Women Saints of East and West by Swami Ghanananda and John Steward-Wallace, which covers saints like Brigid of Kildare.

Anne Sexton (image: Wikipedia)

\From The Awful Rowing Toward God:

“Maybe I am becoming a hermit,opening the door for onlya few special animals?Maybe my skull is too crowdedand it has no opening through whichto feed it soup?” 

St. Brigid of Kildare (image: Wikipedia)

One of the best things about library-ing is that it helps encourage writing.  When we read books and stories, we strengthen our ability to empathize with others and put ourselves in different mindsets, and this in turn helps us to write.  A creativity-boosting writing activity to try is free writing.  Just open a notebook and write whatever comes to mind--fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose--and try not to "edit" yourself as you go.  See where the words take you! 

What books have you discovered recently?  Stay warm today! 

<3 Frances

P.S. On a non-bibliophile note, I want to offer my sincerest prayers for anyone who is suffering today.  There was a mass shooting in California, and there was a major earthquake in Iran, and I'm thinking of everyone who is experiencing loss or tragedy. Know that my heart is with you. <3 <3 <3 <3