Shouting In A Library
“Is she a librarian? I SAID is she a librarian? You could have pointed me in that direction, you saw me standing in this long line”. That is what I heard when I entered the downtown Dallas Library. It was so distracting; I almost missed the glorious smell that hits you in the face upon entering any library. I took a deep breath and climbed the stairs in search of the balcony I could see from outside.
You see, it’s sunny and 79 degrees in Dallas today and I am bound and determined to find some redeeming value from this city. But, alas, Dallas you have let me down again, no balconies in your seven-story library. I wrongly assumed that because Dallas was a bigger city than Nashville surely their library must be bigger and better. Nope, not the case. As I sit at my table somewhere on the fourth floor, where the lady in the children’s section was sure there was an outside balcony, I look around. I feel like I’ve somehow stepped into a time machine disguised as an elevator and entered 1970, and I sigh.
I unpack my journal, my water bottle filled with my cleanse (yes I started a new “diet” that entails two days of cleansing a week and replacing meals with shakes. Let’s face it, those pictures from my mom’s party were awful. No one ever tells you when you look fat, and Raymond’s wedding will be here before I can say “where is my sweet baby boy”). So maybe it’s the lack of real food or the grey of this library. But, every minute I spend in Dallas makes me long not to be here and, surprisingly enough, makes me long for Nashville. Since I’ve been here, I’m certain this place has drained all my creativity and thoughts. Even this entry seems forced.
My sole reason for coming to the library was to transfer my blog entries into my journal, and as I sit here I hear “Booty with some hair on it”. What does that even mean and why do people in Dallas think you can just shout out whatever comes into your mind in a library. Seriously, did they not learn in kindergarten, shhhhhhh you’re in the library??? “Sir, I’m sorry there is no eating in the library”, “Sir, I’m sorry sir you can’t be laughing hysterically as you are watching whatever on the computer screen”. “Sir, how are you feeling? You need to stay awake in the library” the police officer tells the man behind me, who then tells the very next person who walks past him “Don’t be scared of me”. And to the dude listening to a tv show on the computers across from me, “Come on Dude, put your headphones in!!!”
As I go through my blog entries day by day, I wonder to myself, how far have I actually come since September 1, 2014? I’m frustrated with my job, and I asked to be taken off the schedule for the remainder of Dallas. Rob is equally frustrated with his situation, we don’t see each other much, and I wonder if this was the right move. Then, logic steps in and I realize, yes it was the right move financially, but my soul has been left wanting.
Do people ever find happiness and contentment on a daily basis and then get to stop searching? Is the stopping the thing that leaves you wanting? When do you find your purpose and I suppose when do you know when you’ve found it? I closed my bakery 150 days ago today, and I feel just as lost today as I did on the morning of September 1, 2014, and I don’t know how to fix it. Do other people have this longing for a purpose? Or are the monks in Tibet the only ones who can attain it? It is it just the city of Dallas and her angry people who love to use their horns and have no idea how to behave appropriately in a library that has put me in such a funk? Or is my longing for pizza so overwhelming that I am having a hard time concentrating on my purpose?
My life is good. My daughter is graduating in May. She is directly starting her Masters in Urban Education in English (where I hope the first day of every single one of her classes starts out with “shhhhhh you’re in a library). She will save the world, one high-risk, high school student at a time. My son is getting married in September to a kind, beautifully sweet girl, who the whole family loves. I, with some help from Rob, raised good, kind, socially conscious humans. They are my purpose, and I did well. But as usual, that question is haunting me “Now what the fuck to do?”