The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
During the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I rode my bike 3 miles every Saturday to the public library. This solo trip led to a lifelong love affair with libraries and was no doubt the seed of my journalism and writing career.
The brilliance of libraries — places where everything you never realized you wanted to learn is available for free — has never been lost on me. I consider them holy ground, evidence of what happens when human ideas combine with pen and paper (or keyboard and computer) and years of hard work.
Once I had children, leisurely Saturday browsing was replaced by story time with four little ones in tow. We’d listen to 30 minutes of books and songs and then the three older kiddos would scatter to the stacks, pulling out whatever their little hearts desired.
When, years after outgrowing story time, two of my children said they wanted to be in a library if a natural disaster ever occurred, I felt as if I had nothing more to do as a parent. My libraries-are-the-best indoctrination was complete.
Then our first grandchild was born five years ago and I was off and running again. I took Austin to baby, then toddler, and finally preschool story time. And it was in the final story time that we met Miss Natalie, a research library associate at Nanini Library on Shannon Road.
Miss Natalie — Natalie Georgalas to grownups — was our favorite because she didn’t just read books, she revealed them. If a character jumped, Miss Natalie jumped. If a character was climbing a wall, Miss Natalie climbed onto a chair. If there’s was a parade, she was leading one as she read. The kids loved it.
But then COVID-19 sucked all the fun from life, including story time.
The final books Miss Natalie read pre-corona were “Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day,” “How to Trap a Leprechaun,” and “Green.” Then, she recalled in a recent phone interview, she helped the children make construction paper rainbows with pots of gold at the end of them. Ironic, considering what happened next.
“There had been talk in mid-March of possible closures,” she said, “because everything was moving so quickly. But there were no solid plans and I told the kids, ‘See you next week!’”
But that story time never came, as Pima County suspended all meetings held in library branches for COVID-19 mitigation the week following March 17, and shortly thereafter, closed the branches indefinitely.
“It has been hard on all of us because people who work in the library do so because we like helping people,” Miss Natalie explained. “It’s been especially hard on the story time librarians because we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to the kids.”
The majority of the Pima County library branches are offering curbside pickup for items patrons have reserved in advance online, and Miss Natalie said some story time families have left notes from their children for her or her colleagues when they pick up items.
“I can’t tell you how happy that makes us. We all get excited, hearing what is happening in the children’s lives,” she said. “It gives us some closure and sometimes we’re able to wave at them in their cars.”
This relatively small thing — a children’s story time — is one of a million little things COVID-19 has ripped away from us. It is infuriating, especially since anyone who’s paying attention knows our country didn’t have to wind up in such a bad position so late in the game.
Personally, it breaks my heart because Austin started (virtual) kindergarten, and the days for preschool story time are over for him and me.
But because life is not just brutal, but also beautiful, I can report that our second grandchild is due in early September. I’m hopeful a vaccine and/or herd immunity will be in place when he’s old enough for toddler story time and libraries will once again welcome the public with open arms.
When that blessed day comes, I’ll bring him into the library and, as I did with Austin years ago, I’ll whisper, “This is a special place where you can find books about everything and bring them home for two whole weeks!”
Then, I’ll introduce him to Miss Natalie, because the people working in the library are almost as magical as the books they guard for us all.
