Across the Chasm

Today I had to leave the library to run a delivery of books to a classroom. When I returned, there was a student I didn’t recognize in the stacks. Because of certain COVID era restrictions, I am still having students put books on hold, and then delivering them.

I first called out to the student and asked if they needed help. His mask was down, so I asked him to pull it up. He complied, and said he wanted a dystopian book. I said I would go wash my hands and pull any books he wanted – since it was just the two of us in the library, we walked through the stacks – keeping distance – and talked.

When we rounded the corner to one stack row, he told me he used to read all the time, and described what he used to look like. In that moment I knew exactly who he was – but I had not recognized him. I felt like crying, quite honestly. For a moment we stood like two characters in one of the dystopian novels we were looking for – seeing a long lost acquaintance across the chasm of years – both happy the other still exists, but marveling at the changes circumstances have wrought.

It was a momentary reaction , and then we kept talking, I found him two new dystopian titles he had not read yet, and checked the books out to him. In addition, I told him that he could email me any time, and that I could pull more books based on his feedback. He told me he had always liked dystopian novels, but had not been reading much lately. I admitted I had a pretty bad reading slump during the first year of the pandemic.

The sorrow that washed over me at not recognizing a student I used to work with all the time stayed with me all day.

This year at least we have students coming to the library for lessons, and we are working on easing into more browsing as we can find ways to be safe. I know there is hope – but right now feels like the old adage, that “it’s always darkest before the dawn”.

I live in hope that by this time next year the library will be fully open. That the dangers of this pandemic will have receded, and that we can work on healing our communities, and recovering from all we have lost. In the meantime, I will keep pushing ahead, and seeking community and support from my excellent co-workers, and trying to find new ways to plod ahead, until the day we can run once more.