VIVA THE LIBRARY!

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr Seuss

Today I signed up for a library membership for myself and Lily. This would be Lily's first ever library membership. I got all excited holding her first library card!

I love reading. I always have. I always will. I spent most of my childhood and teenage youth with my nose stuck in books. I would spend hours at the library. My safe haven. I love the calmness you find there. The quiet corner where you can sit and read and browse and page. Time standing still, only to suddenly speed up when you leave the library. Even the smell of books is a sensory enjoyment. I often just flick all the pages past my nose just to get a whiff!

Reading is the best escape (as well as music, writing and drawing). I miss all these things. It's all I ever did when I was young. Like most typical teenagers I lived in my bedroom, only leaving when I needed to. I would be so engaged in a good thriller that I never realised the sun going down and the evening becoming dark. When i got older and started clubbing I would even come home and pick up that thriller again because I had to know what happened next. I was a complete night owl back then, now I can't seem to stay awake (i blame that on age and motherhood). Yes, I have fond, fond memories of reading when I was young. I guess it's also because I was shy and a little introverted so books became my friends. I didn't notice time when reading, or worry about boredom or the outside world. When i was a kid we lived in a block of flats in Muizenberg and because of the position of the mountain the sun always seemed to set early leaving the flat feeling dark and nippy. I would come home from school and have the place all to myself (which was nice as come evening time our home was always full of people). So I would tidy up the flat and then make myself some toast and tea and sit right outside our front door where the last bit of sun would be shining (I call this sun seeking) and I'd get lost in my books. It would be just me and my book. Bliss.

I couldn't tell you the name of any authors and I don't have a favourite genre either. I pick book's that appeal to me. It can be a suspense, a biography or a love story. I miss reading. Since Lily's arrival I have far less time to myself, I thought I would be able to catch up with all my books while on maternity leave - how naive I was! But now that Lily is 17 months old thing's are more structured and I hope to pick up my books again and get really stuck in. Right after I sort the house out and unpack the last of the boxes and do all the 100 items on my to do list! Ha! 

I hope Lily will love to read as much as I do. I want to see her spend her free time reading for the love of it. She already has a love of books, we shower her with books and she loves playing with them, paging through them, carrying them around and even eating them! We're hoping she'll get bored of the taste of books but continue to enjoy them. And she's one smart cookie too! We will ask her to fetch a certain book, be it Postman Pat or The Crunching Caterpillars and she will bring us the exact one we have asked for.

So I am very much looking forward to spending many hours with Lily at the Library (once she understands that books are not a food group) and I hope she will appreciate the wonderful gift and privilege that a library is.

S.