Happy 12 euros: library card

Zuerst wollte ich auf ein Foto warten bis ich diesen Text veröffentliche. Dann habe ich gemerkt, dass ich nicht die Geduld habe, um auf dieses eine Foto zu warten. Daher musst du dich für eine Weile mit meiner folgenden Beschreibung zufrieden geben. Das Foto werde ich nachreichen – versprochen (*).

The outside (the photo)

You are standing in front of a shelf in a public library, probably 5 or more rows, all full of books. You can't see the end of the shelf, it extends beyond the left and right edges of the picture. The spines of the books are looking at you. And then there's a girl in front of you, primary school age. She is sitting in a crouch with her back to you. In front of the child is an opened book, half of the book is covered by the child. You're happy because it's nice when people, especially children, leaf through books.

The inside (thought and feeling)

This photo marks a special day. The day I renewed my library card in 2024. And the euphoria I felt when I held my card up to the machine and paid the 12 euro annual fee when asked.

Suddenly I realized what that meant: taking stories home with me, immersing myself in them and finding feelings and thoughts on a scale of 1 to 10 - those of the protagonists and my own.

No book promises me the world but the library promises me a thousand views of the world.

I didn't know how much I missed the world as a library user until I made the payment. Finally being able to spontaneously borrow eBooks again, finally being able to browse again and knowing that I could take the book home with me.

Eventually, I borrowed six books: 1 hiking guide and 5 novels. No way that I will get through all five novels in those four weeks of borrowing. But who doesn't know that happy feeling of taking books home?

So many things for 12 euros: stories, inspiration, perspectives on the world and society, discovering new things and the pleasure of immersing yourself into things. Into a love story, into Arabic cuisine, into the world of physics and languages, into new activities for your hands, into the history of the last twenty years.

Oh, books. Oh, libraries.

~

(*) Edit on 15 September: Herewith, I post the photo 🙂
You find a few words in the post A promise is a promise: The girl in the library of Mainz.

• Category: lautgedacht, Wundertüte
• Tag: Bibliothek, Bildung, Lebensgefühl, Mainz