Where to start

Dear reader,

I had a plucky little blog post in the works some time ago where I held court on the issue of print vs. ebooks but in the light of the unrelenting chaos that has been 2018 I haven't been able to finish it with any heart.  Hey, remember when we thought 2017 was crazy?

We've gone beyond crazy to the nightmarish.  But like I've told you before, I'm not giving up or losing steam.  You want crazy?  I can show you crazy.  Watch me donate more money, show up at more meetings, encourage more friends, get louder and more insistent about what matters.

Why is this so hard, America?  What do we collectively need to let go of to get on with the actual business of caring for ourselves, our family and friends, and our planet?  Have we been so whipped into pretend fear by poor physical and intellectual nutrition that our anxiety and fears have replaced whatever scrap of common sense we might have had?

I write to you on a morning when the past months have seen our government shut down, more environmental fallout from hurricanes and fires, and the most recent wound, an act of profound violence at a high school in Florida.

If you've been following the news at all, you know, and I"m not going to recount it all here.  What I will do is point to an example that gives me heart.

According to east coast news sources like the Washington Post and WTOP, a young republican leader Kyle McDaniel formally resigned from the Republican Party after our top elected official made some especially vile remarks about specific countries, including Haiti.  After some looking, I found the text of it here:  https://bearingdrift.com/2018/01/16/scc-member-kyle-mcdaniel-resigns-virginia-republican-party/

In case that link disappears in the future, I'm copying in this crucial part:

“I held my tongue for too long; hoping things would improve. I was wrong. I can no longer stomach those who support nativism, or their apologists and enablers. After a decade of work in the Republican Party in northern Virginia, it is time for me to step away."

That's what he said.  He spelled out his disagreements, pointed to his moral compass, and left.  I salute you Kyle McDaniel, and I know that your words are going to resonate and inspire others like you, the people who have perhaps always or just recently considered themselves Republicans and then found themselves betrayed and bewildered by the level of hate, greed, and racism currently occupying the highest level of office.  


So if you are casting about with where to start, the important thing is just to start.  Think about what makes you uncomfortable and start by pointing it out, saying it is not acceptable. Declare your state of independence and work toward what is next.


Despair is not an option, I say this as much as to myself as to you.  We have more resources now for organizing, communicating, and unifying than we ever have before.  So here's what I'm wearing on my sleeve for now.


I'm a feminist.


I'm a Democrat.


I'm an environmentalist.


I'm a supporter of the arts.


I'm a blood donor when my iron and blood pressure levels allow it.  



Honestly, it feels good to give and connect.  When you can give 10 dollars to a GoFundMe account like this one https://www.gofundme.com/srhscctm  or bring a bag of groceries to your local food bank or just spend an hour outside picking up litter and offering a friendly greeting to neighbors, just do it.  Don't wait.  Don't you dare let the weight of hate take away your ability to do good.  

Small acts

Dear Reader,

So after yesterday's wallow, I'm feeling surprisingly better.  The heart to heart with myself I had been holding at arms length for several months was actually productive.

Or maybe it was my neurons reassembling themselves to make way, on the solstice, for my genetically programmed stubborn streak to resurface.  Although as a dear friend remarked, "You aren't actually as stubborn as people might think."

I have heard often, and recently read the phrase, "Both things are true."  I need to spend some time re-reading and practicing the skill of observing shadows more often.  What is a shadow and why does it change?

What picked me up off my moody floor was the realization that the act of buying books, with public money for the public's use, is powerful.  I spent a wonderful week-end at the Book Club of California at the Fellowship of the American Bibliophic Society symposium and met some amazing collectors that rejuvenated my knowledge of the power of books.  Small, portable, paper based items that have traveled across time and space with their message.  Books held and conserved by families and individuals, known through bibliography.

Books in a public access place face various hazards, not just being handled and taken out of the building, but of being marked by stamps, stickers, labels, bar codes, and security devices.  Shelved, or incorrectly shelved, by size or genre.  Yet so many of them survive to be read again.

But that is their power--they are here.  And I am going to quit moping and resume my small acts of providing access to information.  Let's review some of my small successes:

1.  Purchasing a copy of Greg Friedler's Naked New York in 1997 for a large, southern, public university.

2.  Purchasing as many of the books and films by and about African writers and artists as I possibly could, taking every recommendation from a literature scholar from Kenya teaching a world literature class at another smaller but still southern public university.

3.  Fulfilling as many requests from students and faculty at my present job as I possibly can, spending every cent of my collection development money and sniffing around the funds of others not as obsessed with collection development as I am.

4.  My next act:  getting more students into my library to see what we have.  I'm done with fancy tutorials and counting clicks.  I am going to host some open salons and bring out the artists books and build a community of people that want to be inspired by the works they can see right here.

I admit, I'm a tame revolutionary.  Sometimes I'm the spider, sometimes I'm the web.  Sometimes I'm the web spun by the spider that is later grabbed up by a hummingbird to build a nest.  I believe in public service and I believe in hospitable open learning spaces where people are free to choose what they want to read.  I believe in quiet and sustained concentration and taking notes by hand.

But I'm also a facilitator rather than a tear-er-down-er.  I can't handle being in big crowds, and find my mojo in writing letters and attending my local city council meetings instead of hauling myself to a parade or the state house.

I will do what I can.  Because that's better than eating myself up with resentment because I can't do it all or even enough.