My Sanctuary

A library is a delivery room for the birth of ideas. ~Norman Cousins


I want my own library. Not one of those monstrous structures housing row after row of dust gathering books, most which, I would never consider worthy companions as I traipse the twisted corridors of life. It's not that I have anything against those books just that my life time is limited and I want to share it with soul mates not acquaintances to whom I am, at best, indifferent and, at worst, disdainful. My desire is for an intimate room, an intimate relationship.

I want a library in my home, a single room with high ceilings and tall, cherry wood bookshelves, crafted of my two hands, bookshelves stretching all the way up the walls to the very top like ivy covering almost every inch of available wall space on three walls except for the fireplace that would blanket me with warmth on chilly days as I read in my comfy chair a sweater on my shoulders and a blank over my legs, a room with oak floors brightly buffed to a reflective sheen on which I can slide from end to end in my sock covered feet. I want these shelves populated with every book with which I communed, with which I became a kindred spirit, with which my view on life was completely and forever altered. I want all three of my copies of Desert Solotaire, the only adult book I have read cover to cover three times or more on those shelves and I want one of the copies housed behind glass opened to my favorite passage.

I want this to be a room full of all my dearest friends. I want to be surrounded the Hardy Boy's mysteries that kept me inside on beautiful summer days during my youth, the pricey text books that carried me through college, the nonfiction books that have taught me an almost infinite number of true and not so true 'facts', my Bible in who's words I find comfort and security, the Quran gifted to me by friends when I visited Turkey where I fell under the spell of the Muezzin's call prayer (except during his predawn call to prayer when I was trying to catch some shut eye before my next big adventure.). There would be a special shelf for all for the Dr Seuss books I read to my kids, my grandson, read over and over until I had lyrical pages memorized by hundreds of repetitions, a place of honor for the Dr's greatest book of all, his alphabet book.

Big A, Little a what begins with A? Aunt Annies Alligator. A, a, A. Big B, Little b what begins with B? Baby, barber, bubbles and a bumble bee. Camel on the ceiling, C, C, c.

The fourth wall would not a wall at all, rather, a floor to ceiling, single pane of glass overlooking a body of water. I love bodies of water. I feed off the energy of raging waves during a storm, fall under the spell found in the tranquility of waves gently lapping the shore that come with the setting sun, absorb the serenity of smooth as glass waters when her heart is calm, contemplate the mystery hidden below her surface, a mystery that forever invites dream like speculation.

In the glass wall would be a door, a magic portal allowing me to commune with the elements, an opening allowing me entrance into Earth's soul, an archway opening to my deck hosting handcrafted deck chairs on which I could sit and admire the beauty of God's designing hand, His artistic flair evident in the water, the mountains, the sky at the closing of day.

All this would exist to be my sanctuary for those days when I wish to pull back from the bustle, when I desire solitude from the human onslaught, when my soul craves communion with the minds of Abbey, Poe, Ziglar and anyone else who's thoughts could satisfy the itch of my curiosity, who's words could feed my desire to walk in intimacy with minds other than my own.