the magic of public space

The local library is one of my favorite lunchtime haunts. Not just for the shelves of well-worn books. But for the daily human narratives. A stale-smelling man hurriedly washing socks in the bathroom sink. The middle-aged woman surrounded by wrinkled shopping bags and law books. Young and old, disheveled and proper, copywriters, artists and mall custodians. An indoor park. The sound of human voices is blissfully muted, you can hear the world again. I love the box of found photographs – infants galore – left in returned books. I love the list of rules taped to the doors: no sleeping, no eating, no open intoxicants, no fighting, no bathing in restrooms. Shirts and shoes must be worn. I imagine life before those signs went up. Dirty barefoot drunkards tearing each other’s sweatshirts off in the poetry section, while their pit bulls went at it in biography. Unaware that in some back room, pen on paper was already changing their lives forever.