Hello library!

So I've come to the Leominster library for a few hours today to do some writing. This counts as writing of course, but I meant to work on a story or two. I do plan to do that, but first I feel like I have a bunch of random thoughts knocking about in my head, and I just need to empty them somewhere.

I love the library. I love the atmosphere. It's so quiet! (Duh) Even when I am home alone, my house doesn't feel this quiet. There are always disctractions available...the tv, music, video games, anything that can be turned on in an instant to produce noise and fill my head with images and crazyness. But here...I can almost feel the quiet. The sounds here are soft, unobtrusive--a whisper here and there, from a study group maybe, a quiet cough, the hum of the fans or heater, the whisper of pages being turned, or the light clicking of a keyboard (I love the sound of keyboards. Particularly my little netbook here. It's fun.)

I've definitely neglected the new library too. I can hardly remember the old one. But I love the feel of this new one (though it's not quite as charming as the old section of the Bolton library, which I would like to visit more often), with the big open rooms and the high celings and large windows that let in lots of warm sunlight. I am curled up in an oversized chair, my shoes lying empty on the floor, my things piled on the table next to me. There are a few other people around, reading, listening to music, and one man is stretching in the sunlight like a cat. Of course, being filled with newer books, this library lacks the pleasantly dusty smell of old tomes, but it does have a strange sort of papery smell here. Someday maybe I'll own enough books to produce that effect--my own library has grown amazingly in the past few years, and as Sarah said, my books seem to be breeding.

Here, there are no distractions for me--excepting of course all the books I haven't read and would love to take home with me (permanently), but for now I can ignore those--and I get an almost medatative feeling. I came here to take my minderms (or maybe it was my finals?) last semester for my online classes. It was then I realized how littled I'd frequented this place over the years, and I decided that I would like to get here at least once a week. As with many of the goals I make for myself, that hasn't happened. But here I am now, and I'm going to try harder to make it here at least once a week. It's nice to be somewhere different. Somewhere I can clear my head and focus my thoughts (or perhaps not, I could easily let them drift), forget the stresses and stupidities that I have to deal with outside the building. There are no colorful video games waiting to distract me, no favorite movies to pop in, no little brother, too cute to ignore.

So I'm saying it here, where I have made all my goals for this year (and I am still struggling with them, but determined not to give up), that I am going to come here once a week to work on my writing. Hopefully I will continue to work on my writing outside of the library (I wrote for about an hour the other day actually), but at least I can make some time to come to a place I enjoy and work on something. I will just have to try very hard not to take out books every time I'm here. It's too easy to wander among the shelves and pick out handfuls of books I've been meaning to read.

Ah, my head feels much better now. More room in my brain to play. :]