all your rivers have spilled

this is a seemingly innocuous photo that someone posted to facebook and brought tears to my eyes. To most of y'all this is just a library; a rather small one at that. In fact, it's my elementary school library in Saudi Arabia. I haven't seen it in twenty-three years and it has changed surprisingly little.

I used to randomly pull books off those middle, lower shelves and look for the ones with caldecott or newberry medals. Partly I thought that meant it was a good book but another part of me just like the shiny foil medals embossed on the covers.

We used to watch filmstrips and slideshows on that upper level with those giant blue plastic headphones ("advance the slide when you hear the beep"). I remember watching egg drop competitions from the upper level, though me (the budding engineer) never got to participate. To the right, just outside the picture frame, were the magazines. BMX Action and skateboarding magazines were worn and crinkly due to hundreds of little boys flipping through them endlessly and the fact that new issues rarely got all the way to Saudi Arabia.

So often, seeing memorable places from your childhood is disappointing: they're smaller than you remember and looking overly worn and neglected. This photo is perfectly posed; frozen in time and so so satisfying.