The library.

Some people love forests, some love the wide open plains. Some love the city, or the ocean. They love grand cathedrals, cabins in the woods, the mall, the skate rink, the pub.

I love libraries.

Books upon books – buildings full of free books on loan.

God bless the person who invented the concept.

God bless the people with their personal libraries scattered throughout Europe and beyond in the olden days.

God bless Gutenberg.

I love to walk into a library for the first time and go splunking.

Some have the most delightful little reading nooks. The children’s sections are the best – posters that promote reading – little houses with rocking chairs to read in, or bean bags. One clever little library had a room just for teens, with reading lamps and a beaded curtain, comfy couches and throw pillows and shelves of all the latest greatest and classic Juvenile fiction.

The most fantastic library I’ve personally ever visited was in Salt Lake City. It was a work of art worthy of Frank Lloyd Wright. It has a sweeping, glorious design with a towering glass wall along one side that takes up all five stories of the building and bathes the rooms with natural sunlight. There’s a rooftop garden that you can walk to along the steps of the sweep. There is a statuary outside containing the most interesting sculptures. Upon entering the five story building, one enters the "Urban Room", which is paved with limestone from Israel. There are shops and art galleries and a fantastic white birds dangling from above which, upon closer inspection, are books in flight. There’s a spiraling grand staircase and three glass elevators. Perhaps my most favorite feature was the children’s library. It was filled with little side rooms with reading nooks. The best of these looked like a little polar icecap zone. When I looked up, I saw through the clear ceiling the bottom of the little pond that I had seen from above outdoors.  Funny – I travel to a new place, and the library is what fills me with pure, unadulterated joy.

I love libraries that were built in the past century with their creaking floors and the pungent smell of a forest floor. I travel its vistas and admire the sweeping row of stacks on oak shelves so lovingly worn that they shine. I touch the cities of books – Chinatown, The Reference Section, Travel, Religion, Nature. I plunge in and oceans of information envelop me in an ecstatic embrace. I can visit wherever, whenever, or whomever I choose. I am free to explore all of time and space – next stop: Everywhere. When I step into the hush of such a library, it is a religious experience for me; it is sacred. I am home.