A Pilgrim at the Library

The ocean is the river's goal
A need to leave the water knows
We're closer now than light years to go

Having written Twenty Books that Have Stayed With Me, and not including Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, I feel as though I missed something. The winnowing exercise of picking 20 is akin to asking which organs are your favorite. I need most all of them.

Memories of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek book seeped deeper than I consciously thought. Even typing the title, I see a young woman, fluttering through a primal landscape. An inquisitive explorer of both land and soul. One eager to find her place by drinking of the surrounding poetry.

But I struggle to recall much more. It is as though that recounted year at the creek has composted into the loam that is my essence; now part of the gnarled admixture of roots and soil that is me. And in that richness resides another of my not listed yet influential books: Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

Siddhartha tracks the religious/spiritual life time trajectory of the main character, whereas Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard explores the pilgrim’s year amongst nature. I suspect one contains the other; but I’m uncertain which.

This past Friday serendipity brought a gift.

I had a few free hours and chose to visit the Goshen Public Library. (Sidenote: Whenever I travel, I make it a habit to visit local book stores and local libraries. I cannot express to you the joy of discovering the curatorial conversation shared through their respective collections.) In my rucksack, I have a book, journal, and laptop. I was going to enjoy an afternoon of reading and writing in one of my favorite public spaces. My quest, to find an essay.

I had read earlier that morning What a Little-Known Ursula K. Le Guin Essay Taught Me About Being a Woman, a blog post by Emily Popek. (Sidenote: I am certain that I have the book that contains the essay. And I’m also certain that it is packed up at the moment.) And thought the library might have that “Little Known” essay. I walked from our store to the library, careful of the forming ice as winter again took hold.

As I approached the entrance, two women, several small children, and a cloud of joy burst from the doors. Their cloths ill-suited for the blustering cold, yet undeterred. I noticed they each shifted their walking style as only those that have walked on ice know to do. Firmly planting one foot before moving another; a learned reflex.

I smiled seeing another generation playful as they exited the library. I could see in those moments that they had felt the enduring freedom of a place that lives to the ideals of what is etched at the foot of Ellis Island’s monument.

I walked past them, giving space for children a glow with energy to play, shiver, and stomp in snow; even though their hands lacked gloves and their shoes were that mesh that lets all moisture seep into your socks, bringing about a chill that takes my aging bones far longer to overcome.

I grabbed that biting cold door handle and pulled my way into the vestibule. To my right I saw the familiar cart loaded with free items: audio books, COVID tests, magazines, discarded paper and hardbacks.

I always check what’s on offer. This time I found that they were culling a copy of Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard. Reaching for that book, I felt memories stir. I had previously checked out this particular copy. And now it was my turn to steward it along its journey.

Standing in the space between out of doors and library proper, I opened to the first essay and saw Total Eclipse; my pulse quickened. Several years ago, I had first read Total Eclipse. The description of the arrival and passing of a total eclipse etched into my memory.

Dillard described an otherworldly event, capturing the haunting discomfort and rare beauty; as though shifting elsewhere: to an old Star Trek alien landscape. One familiar only in that the stage of an old show is set invariably on our Earth.

In 2024 I witnessed a total eclipse, and the like named essay reinforces my memories, reverberating with such crystalline clarity. I thought to myself: an auspicious moment, to have re-found an essay that I think about more often than the Roman empire.

While not a questing beast but instead a talisman, this book helped reinforce a personal aspiration for the year: I’m aiming to read one essay and poem each day. And also read at least one chapter of fiction. And continue writing both publicly and privately.

I’ve found myself over the years yearning to write, as though a plant seeking to burst from beneath the boundary of soil and sky. Reading is often a gentle rain seeping into my writing plant’s hosting soil; making possible growth. Though some reads unleash with a fury, but I think I’m well rooted to receive even their harshest downpour.

As I went from the vestibule of the library into the entry area I looked and saw that one display was highlighting small but mighty non-fiction. Resting on the shelf was Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin. I smiled knowing that I own a copy but that its currently packed up.

I grabbed the book, primed and thinking about that blog post and “Little Known” essay.

I started querying the catalog, missing the tactile interaction with the old wooden analogue. Those old card catalogs, made of the stuff of books, themselves holding the stuff of books, pointing to their brethren. All serving an afterlife of carrying words forward into time and space.

Instead of wood, I queried a course through lighting and melted sand. There were several non-fiction books by Le Guin; and they were to be found in the 814 section of the library (example given (e.g. 📖) , Essays).

With my north star shining I walked back to the 814s. Enroute I looked around at a library full of a myriad of patrons, each setting at private desks engrossed in their endeavors. This was a time when school was in recess and even many of the local factories were in their winter shutdown.

I rummaged and ransacked the shelf, grabbing a stack of essay books and retreating to a private desk; one of those with foot tall privacy walls doubling as boundaries between neighboring patrons. As though two patrons in their literary journey might raise their voice saying “Dad, they’re on my side again.”

I doffed my coat setting it on the chair and my rucksack and essay hoard down on the table. My initial intentions evaporating as I looked upon a myriad of books. I set about intent on flipping through the table of contents of each before picking an essay.

I aborted my plan at my first book: Ursula K. Le Guin by Ursula K. Le Guin and David Naimon. The introduction hit me in the feels. The editor/interviewer spoke of learning about the death of Le Guin while in the final stages of their back and forth refining of what would be the published book.

Tears welled up as reminder of all we’d lost during an era of non-grieving; one that looms again heavy rancorous clouds on the near horizon. Towering and menacing as it once did in a town hall some 8 years ago.

The book’s introduction drew me in, but I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish it during this sitting. I didn’t think I’d have time nor emotional space to feel like I could truly engage with these near final words of an author I so very much admire.

I had wanted Le Guin, but I also wanted to write in the margins. I’d written in library books before, but chose to abstain. I thought to my books currently packed and chose others at the desk on which to graze. So as not to forget, I wrote it down adding Ursula K. Le Guin to my shopping list.

I then picked up and yet… by Christopher Hitchens. A memory flickered of a friend’s thoughtful adoration around Hitchens’s essays. I began thumbing through the table of contents, and I found The Importance of Being Orwell. Having recently read Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens, I thought to follow that thread; one must’ve preceded the other.

My notes are as follows:

Orwell was always investigating primary sources; writing and changing his opinions. He was “prescient” at how neologisms developed and were used to control narratives. I must read his essays.

I knew that as I grabbed those essays, I’d invariably be adding to my shopping list. and yet… joined the fray alongside Orwell’s essays, which already were on the list.

Following threads and holding space for serendipity has lead to some interesting moments; allowing my brain to wander. One curiosity has been John Brown.

In one of those “adhering to intention” mornings at the start of the new year, I grabbed a book of poetry and started reading The Portent by Herman Mellville. The next day, I pulled The Essential Muriel Rukeyser from the shelf and flipped at random to the The Soul and Body of John Brown.

Leaving me to wonder, how many poems (and essays) might there be about John Brown? Just last night I found another one lurking in my just thrifted copy of The Poetry of E.A. Robinson. There are certainly a few more packed away and now I’d be questing for more.

But back to that library, with not a John Brown in sight; at least not in my quick scan of these 814s’s tables of contents. (Sidenote: Though I didn’t check their indices.)

I chose then to continue my grazing, though pushing aside the heaping helpings of Le Guin. During my ransacking, I had grabbed a front-facing book: A Literary Education and Other Essays by Joseph Epstein. I was curious, as I feel an ever present thirst to drink deeper for/of my “Literary Education.”

Thumbing through the table of contents I found The Death of Liberal Arts. I cherish my liberal arts education. I have also worked at a university with a large Arts & Letters college, but which favors football programs, producing business majors, and religious legal ideologues. So I thought this essay could provide insights into an observed malaise.

Which echoes a conversation my partner and I have had. We think that we were present just past the cresting zenith of the public school experiment. She being just a bit older may have been at the zenith. We had ample recess, minimal homework, and even computer programming classes in elementary school. I learned to sew and cook in school, do my taxes, and create a formal letter.

Here are my notes from The Death of Liberal Arts:

Reading [The Death of Liberal Arts] essay, I nodded along with the observed erosion of liberal arts. However, as I finished nodding one passage struck as a disgruntled Boomer that made fun of Millenials who didn’t know how to cook. The Millenials didn’t know how to cook because the Boomers failed to teach cooking.

That’s somewhat harsh, but the tones I got were of one who wanted to sustain the past systems; that we are where we are at because of our historic corpus and that should be sustained.

That passage “we are where we are at because of our historic corpus” is an echo of something I previously read, which I failed to jot down but am instead trying to remember. In rough approximation it is: there is an extreme and obvious disconnect between where we are at and the history that espouses to describe how we got to where we are at.

Orwell’s 1984 has something to say about that: “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past.”

That essay stuck, as though a popcorn kernel between two molars. I picked at it with my tongue as I jumped to a book that piqued my inner philosopher: Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write by Claire Messud. Again, I looked to the table of contents and saw a trio of essays related to Albert Camus:

• Camus and Algeria
• A New L’Étranger
• The Brother of the Stranger

Yes please, I thought to myself as I turned to the first essay. My notes from those three are as follows:

In Camus and Algeria, the essay helped me understand Camus’s written position regarding the independence of Algeria; namely that there must be space for the colonizers (now generations established as the only home they know) as well as full and sincere reparations for the colonized. This helps untarnish the “smears” I’ve read regarding Camus.

A New L’Étranger by Claire Messud has me reconsidering the translation I might read; namely to read Sandra Smith’s.

And last is The Brother of the Stranger, which highlights a book I recently picked up The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud and the pains of post-colonial Algeria which has made “strangers” of many.

I added Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write to my shopping list and started wrapping up. The final essay of that day being a reminder to get back to reading The Meursault Investigation.

These five essays (and one introduction) had formed a river, carrying me through a multitude. And as I assemble this narrative stone by stone, I am thankful for my Reading Challenges, as it (along with many other activities) equipped me to read more critically.

While packing up, I revisited the needling nagging passage in Epstein’s essay and sought more information regarding Epstein. Here are my notes from that search:

Looking to Wikipedia, he’s a bigot [homophobe and mysoginist]. So fuck right off. Two controversies: one regarding homosexuality and two dismissing Dr. Jill Biden’s doctorate and honorific. What a turd.

With sunlight starting to fade I put Epstein’s book back on the shelf; not in its front-facing position, but instead more modest in showing its spine along side its alphabetical neighbors. (Sidenote: Normally, I’ll leave books out for refiling by the library staff.) I then grabbed an on-the-shelf book of Le Guin essays and put it front-facing.

The other books I left for re-shelving, my understanding being that this helps with gleaning some non-circulating insights into selected books. Walking through the library, in which I’m now a non-resident patron, I started zipping up my winter coat and securing my rucksack.

I’ve walked it many times, but it was my first exit since moving away from its district.

This library is where, having moved into town at the start of 7th grade, I got my first “I can check out grown-up books” library card. I spent many summer nights reading Forgotten Realms novels that I’d checked out from the library.

This library is named in my will as one of the benefactors (were my partner and all of my children to proceed me in death). A contingency I hadn’t really considered until the Covid-19 Pandemic took hold.

The Goshen Public Library is where I’d taken my children to get books and videos for the week. It was where they too got their first library card that allowed them to checkout “grown-up books.”

One particular visit many years ago, I had attached the child ride along to my bike. My two then young daughters rode in the back, and my son pedaled along on his bike.

We biked the mile from our ranch-style house to the library, traveling along a pathway through a wetland and park; a major artery of both traffic and watershed. The girls were just a bit too much for the ride along, but we made it work.

We spent an hour or so at the library; listening to story time, playing with the gigantic chess set, the three coordinating amongst themselves the 5 videos we’d all checkout.

As we were packing up to return, I noticed that the winds had changed. A storm was coming in; the clouds were heavy and I could feel the pull of air as though sucking in a breath to blow out an septuagenarian’s conflagration of birthday candles.

We peddled frantically to beat the rains. My unencumbered son easily keeping pace as we raced home. We peddled down the pathway to the wetland area, then climbed up and hit headwinds. The children were all cheering at this lived moment.

As we turned onto our street I told my son to scurry ahead and open the garage.

He rose off his bike seat, stepping hard, and sped ahead. As I drew closer I saw the garage opening, and heard the woosh of heavy rains drawing closer. I turned onto our driveway, and we screeched to a stop in the garage just as heaven opened upon our drive way then roof and soon all was driving rain.

And now, as I stepped through that vestibule out into the cold, I pulled on my gloves and looked upon a winter-scape: one cold with a fresh covering snow. And I knew that treachery lurked beneath it all and adjusted my stride.

This moment held the promise that all too soon we would join the cold thaw, seeking creek then river then ocean, ever rising into heaven and falling once more.