Memory Of Belonging

I’m walking through the stack of books, all shiny with plastic covers.  Suddenly I’m traveling back in time.  It’s a feeling more than anything, but I get visuals too.  First the Junior High library then all the way back to elementary school.

All those books,  each its own world, and I can enter any one I choose.  And my favorites, all I have to do is look at the spine stuck between two others and I’m there.

I don’t have words for what I’m feeling.   But in it is the sense of possibility.  Freedom from my life.  A secret place that is all mine.   The comfort of being safe within myself.   And the nascent memory of belonging.

These are my people, welcoming me in.  They live in this quiet building, in these rooms, side by side.  And even if I can’t keep them, I can take them home for a while and come back to visit them when ever I want.

Emily was saying something, but I didn’t hear her.  I was trying to hold onto the feeling.  One of the good ones from my childhood.

We just finished hanging Emily’s art in the Pownal Library for her exhibit Magic, Nature and Books  and she was showing me around when I was struck by the feeling.   I told her about it and  she said that Libraries and desserts evoke feelings of nostalgia, feel good kind of memories.

The next day when we were texting Emily added quilts to the list along with libraries and desserts.

I’ve had the linens for many years.  Some have tea pots, others flowers.  I’ve been saving them, trying to understand how to use them.   Maybe houseplants and gardens should be added to the list too.

I thought about the linens a few days ago, about making a quilt from them.  The idea came when I was making my Back Porch Potholders.

Now I thinking there might be another layer to those old hand embroidered linens that can only coalesce once I sew them together.