recently, i’ve had reason to explore some of the libraries on campus. a few days ago, i visited the historical society and needed to retrieve something out of the stacks. i had a call number, but no idea where to go, so i asked and was directed to go down two flights of stairs and i’d be there. so i followed the directions and when i encountered the stairs, i saw that they were small, narrow stairs behind a skinnier-than-normal door. i went down the stairs (and then down another, similar flight of stairs) and found myself in a darkish room filled with a warren of dusty-smelling bookstacks. i was enchanted. the ceiling had exposed pipes running across it and wasn’t that much taller than my head (and i’m not very tall). i’m also curious as to how this building, which ostensibly has only two floors, could have so many tiny flights of stairs leading to so many different levels (at least four). i felt distinctly as though i had fallen into the “being john malkovich” movie. a smile wiggled its way to my face and wouldn’t leave. there were light switches at the ends of the aisles so that i could see better (great idea! why waste energy and fade the books with constant lighting?) and tiny desks at the end of every other aisle so that i would have a place to land and browse my books. i had a vague urge to do something naughty, like rearrange two or three books or make out with mr. happy stuff or whistle really loudly.
a few days before that, i was wandering another, even larger library on campus and got myself almost lost. again, they have these semi-floors (i was told to use the elevator, not the stairs because the stairs bypass those floors–how weird!) and the stacks weave all the way back to the edges of the rooms. when i walked into those rooms full of books, i was hit by a blast of book-smell that took me right back to my undergraduate days when i worked in the libraries during the summer “dusting” the books (the value of this job was a little marred by the fact that whatever method of dusting we chose–fluffy “static” dusters, vaccuums, etc.–invariably kicked up more dust). once again, i was time-traveling with my nose.
i also had another strange feeling in the bigger library. the floors are labeled, 1, 1m, 2, 2m, etc. and from the stomach feeling that i had gotten in the elevator, i had been sure that 1m was below floor 1. when i got completely frustrated because my alphabet and numbers were getting a little dyslexic in my head and i was convinced that the call number i was looking for must exist in another dimension that was only reachable by the secret elevator i couldn’t find, i went to the circulation desk on floor 1 to get better directions. i refered to my search by saying, “down on 1m” and really confused the librarian who had to repeat about three times that 1m was up, not down. it just brought to mind this certain mind trick that i do every once in awhile where i try to convince my brain that i’m on a level of a building that’s different than where i actually am. for instance, if i’m on the fourth floor of a building, i might try to pretend that i’m on the ground floor. or if i’m in the basement, i might try to convince myself that i’m up about three levels. i know it sounds really weird, but for me, it gives me this strange, flutter, pit-of-the-stomach sense of displacement that i kind of get a kick out of. try it. does anyone else get the same feeling? i think i read somewhere that it has to do with something in our inner ear.
