Short Shelves

Today is the fourth Tuesday of the month, a death day. Sometimes I stay home on the morning of the fourth Tuesday and chat with my exterminator when he comes to squirt poison on the baseboards, but today I don’t feel like making small talk with an almost-stranger. Today is a quiet day. Today is an alone day. Today is a day when I feel like scurrying into a social corner to hide and hope nobody finds me. Since Phil, my exterminator, has a key to my house, there’s no need for me to stay home just to open a door he can unlock for himself. And so, this morning I ran away from home. I left a check on the counter to pay the assassin for his services, packed my computer, and escaped to the library to read and write and watch the books.

It’s a little overwhelming to sit in the library and write, surrounded by so many words that have been used so well for so long. Writing here makes me feel small, like a little boy singing “row, row, row your boat” while the Boston Philharmonic roars in the background. I feel like I’m crashing a party, trying to maintain conversation with sophisticated strangers I’ve watched and admired my whole life while stuttering foolishly about how much I love them and how I’ve read all of their work and how I wish I could be as wise and eloquent as they are. The library is intimidating. I feel insecure and inadequate here. All the clever phrases and elegant ideas that live on these shelves are gracious to let me sit quietly and scribble on my pad while they whisper their magic around me.

If I look across the library’s horizon of bookshelves, my eye moves from right to left across the tall skyscrapers of adult fiction, biography, and science & technology to the squatty suburbs of children’s literature at the far end of the room. In this section, where the books turn tall and skinny, their bookcases shorten to accommodate the limited reach of curious children. In the children’s section the shelves are low and proportional to the small readers who wander through them. Adult visitors to the library might have to ask where in the grown-up sections they can find Stephen King, Stephen Hawking, or a history of World War II, but it’s obvious where Dr. Seuss lives. He’s right across from Peter Pan and two books down from Curious George. He lives where the shelves turn short, in the children’s section of the local library.

Librarians put these short shelves in the children’s section not because they want to be condescending to young readers, but because they realize a child can’t read what he can’t reach; and he won’t reach for what he can’t see. They learn this logic in library school where the classes are quiet and everyone sits according to the Dewy Decimal System. Smart librarians know that there’s no point in putting a book over a child’s head. If you do, he’ll assume that what is out of his reach is also beyond his grasp. And then he’ll get frustrated and go home and play video games instead.

I must admit, I miss the days of the short shelves, when everything was easy to reach and easy to read. Today I remind myself that while there is wisdom to be found on the high shelves of philosophy and history, theology and ethics – wisdom need not hide in shadowy corners full of mice and fear. There is also truth close to the ground and well within reach. Incarnate. Full of color and life. And short sentences. And easy words. And joy.