When I was a little girl with big glasses and broken teeth, the library was my comfort zone, a place where I could sink into soft chairs and read magazines for hours, or stack books up to my forehead and feel so, so smart (I didn’t know what “intellectual” meant at 7). It was also where I could hide. I still remember the click of the security bar as I entered, almost like laughter.
And when I was a secretly gay girl ensconced in my Christian college, suffering, suffering – the library was where I went to find my tribe. My tribe in words. I’d head down to the local branch in my college town, that liberal one on the edge of the river, and furtively glance around to make sure no one from school was there. One report to the Dean on my particular subject matter and I’d be hauled in for questioning. Remember, this was 1990 — the edge of the Internet age. I was at the mercy of librarian’s choice and a fragile sense of anonymity off-campus. More »
