Five Questions for Winter
I
received a few sharp words from my co-workers for my recent post in
which I not only suggested that no one at my library does any work, but
actually demonstrated them in the act of not doing it. These sharp words
stirred up several questions in my mind.
1.
Why are my co-workers reading this blog when they could be reading any
number of books from our thorough collection of Medieval Literature,
like The Mabinogion for instance?
2.
Do my co-workers not know they're not working? I could demonstrate it
for them so they become more familiar with what it looks like. But not
now because I am too busy writing the library blog.
3.
Would they rather I lie to the public here? Lie! In a library, the
repository of human knowledge and truth! I am scandalized at the mere
suggestion!
4.
Do they think that all this not working is some fault of their own?
There is nothing to do here! Nothing! This is due not to worker
laziness. It is due to the fact the only person in all of Last Harbor,
Minnesota, who would actually want to read The Mabinogion, which
is the sort of thing our collection focuses on, is upstairs, so
industriously refining our collection and micromanaging our library that
she has time to read neither it nor this blog.
5.
Are my co-workers unaware that this time belongs to them, to be
enjoyed, because once the summer season arrives again they will all be
fantastically overwhelmed? Have they forgotten the throngs of tourists
who under no circumstances are interested in one of the greatest
buildings in the world, our Frank Lloyd Wright designed masterpiece,
when it is minus 20 degrees out, but are fanatically interested in it
when it is a steamy, ice cream eating, 60 degrees out at the height of
summer? Have they forgotten the endless tours, the convincing of people
that even though we own not a single book by James Patterson, they might
really like The Mabinogion (they won't), the complicated issuing
of library cards to people living across the planet so that they can
check out three books one time in order to never read them? Have they
forgotten the mad carnival of events, shows, architectural lectures and
confused tourists who descend on Last Harbor mistakenly thinking there
is something of note to do here besides this library ("No, I'm sorry. I
believe you're thinking of Grand Marais. No, moose rarely wander into
town.")?
Yes,
my co-workers have forgotten. All people who live in an extreme climate
share this in common: they are incapable of remembering the other
seasons or any other conditions than the current ones. It requires so much
effort to contend with these conditions that there is no room for that
small bit of imagination that allows one to conceptually travel in time.
It is, as I mentioned, minus 20 degrees out right now (I was neither
kidding nor exaggerating). For us it is like this always and ever will
be. But I have now lived up here for a bit less than three years, and so
still retain, barely, a bit of the ability to see in the long view. I
know that if you take the average of the whole year it is merely cold
here, not insanely freezing, that it is not always dark, but balanced
between light and dark pretty evenly, and that though we all have
nothing to do now, averaged through one of our summers, we do our share
of work. And so I say to anyone contending with a bitter, shut in
winter, pick up a copy of The Mabinogion, or tune your internet dial to this blog, and stay calm when the truth is spoken.
