although i work on a college campus, i don’t interact with the actual campus all that often – my theatre is located on the northern edge, i drive in, i work, i leave – and most of my interaction with “the university” is in adapting my department’s purchasing and payroll systems so they’ll interface with the university’s bookkeeping behemoth. this evening during dinner break i took a walk across campus to get a book from the library. it was twilight, a warm, late-summer evening. all the undergrads are back on campus but there’s no homework or classes yet, so the students were out in full force: dressed in board shorts and halter tops that will soon be rendered obsolete, groups of freshman moving swiftly across campus in packs of three and four, talking about home, about which AP exams they took, about picking a major. circles of kids throwing a frisbee while a perky RA tries to get them to learn each other’s names, bands playing in the dormitory courtyard, party-cup holding guys bobbing their heads and casting sideways glances at the girl from down the hall. the hush of the long winter, and classes, will descend soon enough; for tonight everything under the full moon is new.

by contrast, the library was eerily vacant, only a few grad students lurking in their carrels. i dearly love the muted hush of dimly-let library stacks. but i find going into a new library for the first time to be terribly intimidating; will i know where the stacks are? will there be a map showing what floor my call number is on? is that computer the catalog or the internet kiosk or both? where ARE the stairs to the 4th floor? what if the book i want just isn’t there? will i have to talk to a mean old librarian or will i get a bored grad student? will i look dumb? (am i the only one with library insecurities? probably).

the year after i graduated i found excuses/cause to sneak back into the libraries at stanford, (handing over my deactivated student ID card and explaining to the student at the desk that it wasn’t working because of the wrinkle in the magnetic strip and could they please just buzz me thru) but after that first year i detached somewhat from the world of the research library and suddenly i find myself, seven years out of academia, holder of a chicago public library card that i use but rarely.* still, i find that negotiating the main campus library required the same sort of zen flow that one uses when navigating a huge foreign transportation hub like the main tokyo rail station or heathrow airport; if you just move with the flow of traffic, and don’t stop to think too hard about where you came from and where you’re trying to get to, it usually works out right, even if you can’t read the kanji. i drilled down: the right floor, the right stack, the right call number, and there was my book; three english translations to choose from plus several in the original czech. as i was puzzling over translation a tinny old school bell rang to signify closing time; i selected one at random and flowed back down to the main floor. at the circulation desk a bored student looked up at me, took my book, my staff id card, scanned both and handed them to me: “due back january 20th.” (january 20th? not a lot of demand for early 20th century czech sci fi, i guess.) book in hand, task succesfully navigated, i still felt vaguely like an imposter, like someone would notice i didn’t belong, that the “staff” label on my ID card clearly excludes me from the legitimate pool of students and faculty who of course know their way around a library. i’m a janitor. the lunch lady. hospital intake coordinator. production coordinator for an obscure university subsidiary arts organization. still, the old rule seemed to hold true: if i just *look* like i know where i’m going, no one ever stops to question me. it’s a rule i apply in the rest of my life and career, unconsciously as much as anything. people often comment on how in-control and on top of things i seem. really? seriously? wow. that’s great. risky for you, good for me.

*i like paperback editions i can dog-ear ruthlessly, not to mention carry in my bag without undue weight of hard covers. also, i love the aesthetic of the shiny cover art, clean modern fonts, spines i can bend or break till they lay flat on the breakfast table.