Date: Sunday, 9/7/69

I’m ready for classes to start tomorrow. My clothes are in order for the entire week. I’ve become friends with the library.

This morning, I got to breakfast in the Commons late. Eileen appeared. She sat down at my table as if she always had breakfast with me. I ate my bowl of oatmeal and fruit. Eileen sat down to a breakfast of bagel with cream cheese, coffee cake, juice and coffee. I was too nervous to eat like that.

She was going to practice for the whole day, of course. I like how when she says to me, “I need to hurry and get to the practice room,” how I feel so much a part of her life now.

Eileen asked me what I was doing today. I told her I was going to the library to study it more closely.

“Scags, you are great. I don’t know anyone who goes to a library to study it. I love you.”

She just says things like that and I don’t ever know what to say back.

I went into this long explanation about my existential need for libraries but I could see she lost interest quickly.

Who needs to listen to me go on and on about the function of a library? I know in my heart of hearts that Eileen and I are different in many ways. Even though we are both here on scholarship, I am the one who is the student and she is the one who is the musician. There’s a huge difference between the two, believe me.

Books breathe and live in libraries and wait for us to take them from the shelves and drink from them. Like little springs that bubble up out of the strangest places, they open up to reveal secret worlds. And each book has his or her own opinion about everything. They argue constantly about the meaning, the beauty and the sense of life. I wanted to share these thoughts with Eileen but she wanted to practice.

I sound like I’m on a mission to change the way people think about libraries. I get carried away and go on and on about how libraries should be the center of our lives. No one has ever agreed with me.

Eileen left and I went to introduce myself to the library. I spent hours there. By the time I left, the sun had set. During the day, the library looks as if it is feeding off the side of the mountain. At night, with the lights on, it glows like a hovering hive. When the lights go off, the whole building disappears, as if it doesn’t exist.

Its architectural design is distinctly different from the rest of this place. The College qualifies as a movie set for “quaint and monied.” I admit I like that look. Eileen calls the campus look, “New England charming.” She thinks the library’s steel and glass exterior was someone’s bad idea stuck in a spot on the side of the mountain not many people see.

The interior though makes one forget the exterior. The moment I entered, it sucked me in and delivered me into this extremely rich environment. Yes. It was designed for those who love libraries. No, that’s not giving it its due. This library was specifically conceived and created for people like me.

I know how self-centered that sounds. But it was.

First of all, you can’t believe the size of its collection. It’s immense. This is the Arts and Humanities Library. There is a small Science collection housed here but the larger one is in the Science building across campus. I saw a sign saying that the majority of the Social Sciences collection is in another building as well.

Let me begin at the moment I walked through the doors. I walked into this dark area where the reference desk, sign out desks and reserve desk all were. Quiet reigned as it should in a library. As I walked in from the bright outdoors to the cool, dark and silent inside, the main floor made it clear already that a master of the library had put this all together. There are two more floors above this entryway. Each has windows on three sides. On each of those floors, he wall where the library sits parked into the side of the mountain is interesting too. They have a small cafe on each floor, restrooms and phone booths. I could live in the library.

The reading rooms were furnished with an abundance of long wooden tables. Row upon row of dark tables filled the rooms. Beyond the tables and along the northern wall, armchairs nestled in little groups with ottomans and side tables arranged to make those areas as comfortable as possible. All the available floor space was carpeted to cut down on the noise so you walked on these plush woven fabrics in various shades of green.

I had to sit in every chair and run my hands along the tables feeling their smooth finish. Then I walked over to the windows and looked outside from each vantage point. No matter which way I looked, I saw trees. We were up in the trees like squirrels in our nests.

I sat down at one of the long tables closest to a window facing west and watched the sky changing. It never stopped changing. The clouds came through quickly, always in a rush; their sizes and colors whirling through as if they had no time to stop.

With the amount of sunlight that came through the window today, I saw how easy it will be to use my sun clock approach to studying here too. The long tables are perfect for laying out my books and papers and for also watching the the progress of the sun as the day goes by. I prefer that way to tell time to any other when I work in the library.

My classes may begin now. I am ready for the long days of my “P” schedule as Eileen called it. My Pottery, Philosophy, Psychology, Poetry and Phys. Ed classes are about to start. I’ve set my alarm for 5:30.

I’m glad I had all that time to wander through the entire library. If Sylvie were in our room now, I could share with her the secrets I learned. She’s quite popular already. So, she’s out with her friends. People come and go here with such ease. They have cars. Did I write here yet that my next door neighbor, Kit, has a Bentley and drives it to the Commons for breakfast?

I’m ready for tomorrow and even though it is only 9:30, it never hurts to get a good night’s sleep. I have a team run in the morning before my classes start. Did I say I was excited? And nervous? I wish Mama and Pops were here to wish me well.