I might not have become a librarian if it weren’t for my local library. I would also not have become a sailor. I grew up in Tucson Arizona in the middle of the desert. I would spend my afternoons walking to the library after school because the librarians were family friends and the library was halfway between my house and the school. I can’t imagine what they thought of this 8 year old kid who read just about every book about sailing while not living within 250 miles of a significant body of water capable of sailing on. I would dream of living on and around boats surrounded by the potential of vast oceans.

But that is the beauty of the library right? In a world without libraries I wouldn’t be a sailor, I obviously wouldn’t be a librarian. Now I live on the ocean on a sailboat. I couldn’t get any closer the where the library of my youth took me.

I think about this a lot while working at my library and watching the young kids that come in. I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, one of these kids living next to the ocean is reading books about the desert, wishing that they could live in Tucson surrounded by cactus and the quiet vastness of the desert.

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