When I moved to Jacksonville it was for the usual reasons: family and the beach. Simple as that. But once I got here, bought a fixer upper and began the overwhelming task of fixing up that fixer upper I quickly learned that I was in over my head. I guess at this point I should say I have trouble figuring out the useful end of a hammer and all those other things are foreign objects that you hear guys talking about that quickly give you a headache.
And then in a weak moment I remembered my old flame the library. It wasn’t perfect but was steady and reliable and so I decided to resume the relationship. I was more than surprised to learn that the Jacksonville Library was a lover that had cleaned up it’s act and had just the books I needed to explain the mystery of that hammer. So when I knocked out a wall too far I went back again and softly asked “How do you do drywall?” And as if by magic this gentle lover produced a DVD that walked you through the steps of replacing a wall and actually made it look easy. And, just to prove my point check out my before and after pictures:
Time moved on and the fixer upper was beginning to look more fixed up but somehow something was missing… that decorating book said I needed a focal point and a fireplace mantle would just do the trick. And, once I was released from the cardiac unit after pricing them I again returned to the place of my dreams and it showed me just what to do to make it myself. For a small cost I anchored my faux mantle to the wall and life was good.
I took a break from fixer uppering and began tag team wrestling with the State of Florida to move my Clinical Social Worker’s license from Colorado to Florida.
“What do you mean I have to take a three hour, 150 question national exam? Do you realize how long it’s been since I finished graduate school?”
After much gnashing of teeth I signed up for the exam and once again asked the place of my dreams for the books I needed on personality theory, psychotherapy, and human development. True to form, everything I needed was there. I passed the exam with time to spare and channeled a score of 80.
I was now free to practice my trade. And then I learned my sessions were so good that people started telling me they’d like them on CD to use outside the office. Now I find myself having to compete for my loves attention standing next to a 15 year old talking about rapping and me actually reading a book called “Burning Down the House.” But, it worked and in no time I had a home recording studio and you passed the CD’s on your way to this blog. Just call me 25 Cents!
As you can probably tell I’m not one to sit around so it was back to the fixer uppering. And this time I wanted a pergola (arbor to you folks in the South) to rest my nerves after a long, hard day. Alex (the significant other I mentioned earlier) is a genius (no kidding), designs computer software but does nothing physical and was more than happy to surrender me to my other love. So there I was, armed with building plans and instructions in the middle of July, with a load of pressure treated wood, sweating buckets. One day, I even fantasized about killing Alex after he said to me “Baby, you’ve actually lost weight since you went into construction.” It became my grand folly. But, slowly it took shape just like in the book and in no time I had my retreat.
Every afternoon I would sit under the pergola and drift off secure in the knowledge that the place of my dreams would always be there with the information I needed… until the day the email came. It said the budget for the library would be cut. It said the budget to buy books was going to be cut. It was then that I realized I had taken for granted that the place of my dreams would always be there when I needed it. It was then that I realized I had to speak up because what is a library without books. Like anything that we love and assume will always be there I ran the risk of needing something and finding out it was not there… libraries need books. It’s like a farmer eating his seed corn and thinking he will have a crop in the next season… libraries need books. And so I end this love story with a cautionary tale: You don’t miss what you’ve got until it’s gone. Support your local library whenever you can!
Beautiful! As a library patron I, too, have found everything from the pracitical to the fanciful at the library. In the words of an old rock tune “Feed your head!”