a summer of slosh

and the women who saved me

What is the smell of words? When they are all smashed together in volumes and the dimensional rectangles that are stacked and scrunched and enforced into tidy shelves. What is that smell of quiet, the incredible whoosh of it when you walk into the room that is filled with people who have nothing to say and everything to understand?

It must have been God who placed that library one block away from our house in suburban Houston. It was the summer of 1981, and our home was imploding with the smell of lumber and beer, lumber and beer. Every Friday our yard was decorated with 4-6 lawn ornaments, but these were live figures in repose. Each of them was a grizzled construction worker with a peaceful look on their face thanks to way too much beer after another long, hot day of work.

Photo by Ranurte on Unsplash

I would tiptoe past them in my YoYo shoes, that vast space between leather loops squishing with every step, the quiet I hoped for awaiting me a block away. I did not want to wake them or invite any looks or comments about my small but chubby 4th almost 5th-grader body.

See, my parents were adding a second story until our little ranch house, which appeared epic in the plans. The worn and frayed blueprints that my father had pored over for over a year had new bedrooms, two new bathrooms, and even a den but unfortunately, unseasonal monsoons brought an entire year's worth of rain in the week just after they pulled off the roof. I needed escape from the dozen men in the house, the pounding and the chaos, and the waterfalls that kept appearing in the ceilings.

We lived in a subdivision, but in less than a block it butted right up to Fondren - a four-lane tiny freeway that served as a race track for motorists to move through our little corner of Houston. The library was just across; next door to the Whataburger, two great places that go great together. I always had the Frogger video game theme song in my mind as I ran, keeping a close eye on the little white man up on the traffic light that flashed and demanded I hurry.

Upon entering the library, the hush was welcome on my frayed nerves. Awash with the smell of dust and dreams, I was instantly soothed by all of the worlds that beckoned me inside the books, 1003 places to visit, and 953 characters to trust to take me there. There were two librarians that I especially remember that summer. I remember their gentle ways, their reflective eyes (both wore glasses), and how they both had boring haircuts - one was funny and one incredibly kind. They understood without me telling them why my pink library card was frayed and worn, why I presented it every 4 days to get a stack of 6-8 books, and that they were granting me the beloved freedom to fly away. 

BANG and splash, every night for a week, a new ceiling caved in, the flimsy tarp filling up to the point where it could not hold any more of the sky sauce. Our dog Snowball was traumatized by multiple near misses to her little white head -  the poor pup did not know where to sleep as the entirety of a lake was dumped into our home. So long to our brown shag carpet, our brown leather couch, our books and papers, the detritus of our lives - all soggy and sopped and sad.  After a few mornings of feeling the heartbreak for what was lost in the night, by the fifth night of waking at some point to a crash, we just sleepily stumbled by the extended puddle that featured a couch to get to our bowls of cereal and sugar, dodging a pile of wood and nails and the pink puffy insulation that looked a lot friendlier than it was.

It was summertime in Houston and our AC was out. We only had two bedrooms that weren’t in the danger zone, unfortunately, our dog had brought in another problem that no one had the bandwidth to deal with. Fleas.

So I left. And thanked my lucky stars as I walked the one block to my safe place.

Those loving librarians pulled all the stories for me; winking when I walked in, nodding to the pile they set aside. All of the magic ones, all of the plots where someone had extra powers or supernatural abilities. Witches and Frodos and wardrobes that lead to enchanted places. It was a portal out of the pain and a precious sanctuary I will never forget. I couldn’t believe I was so welcomed and invited, and the wildest truth was that a small pink piece of official cardstock with my name printed on it meant that at 10 years old I was a powerbroker able to deal in the free bliss bombs of books.