#I MISS MY LIBRARY WINDOWS#

#I MISS MY LIBRARY WINDOWS#

I miss being there in the middle of the night and then the early morning, the performance of the full-length windows crescendoing to darkness before getting bright again and hearing the birds remind me that I should really be asleep. I miss the camaraderie of 3am on the second-floor of the Ussher, of the tangibility of the solidarity between myself and mostly strangers as we scrambled to finish assignments or cram some last-minute information in.

I miss being too warm, being too cold, wandering around the shelves of subjects I don’t even study and picking up books that sound interesting as a distraction. I miss the politics of that changeover, of seeing who was staying and who wasn’t, noting down who was talking to who as we all stood in the freezing cold wondering why this was necessary. I miss the changeover time with all its chaos, judging the people who were taking the opportunity to stress smoke and judging the people who weren’t. I miss conveniently going to fill my water bottle so I could strike up too-loud conversations with friends, acquaintances and enemies that happened to be taking a break at the same time. The library was never a place to go and sit and work: it was a place to go and sit and open your books for 10 minutes before getting a text from a friend sitting across the room suggesting you go for a two-hour coffee break I even miss the early morning rush for a seat during exam time, although that’s probably because I always knew there’d be some left in the Hamilton.

I miss arriving early and leaving late and not doing a tap of work because I am too busy pretending to do work, or – more often than not – because I am watching lives unfold in front of me. It was sitting there at five to eight at night, willing a text that always came with the suggestion to “just go for one”. It was a place to performatively study in the Ussher and performatively not study in the Lecky. The library was never a place to go and sit and work: it was a place to go and sit and open your books for 10 minutes before getting a text from a friend sitting across the room suggesting you go for a two-hour coffee break.

I miss my library