The Pacific

Saturday 6pm

I was brought up in a library. Well, no of course I wasn't but I have spent a lot of time in them. When I was little my mum would often put me in the pushchair and walk down to the library for an hour or two. When I was older and living in Edinburgh, every couple of weeks we would trot off to the library, Blackhall, or Corstorphine for a change some times. And on empty afternoons while at university you could often find me at the central library along with the alkies and slightly greasy seats that you are not sure you wanted to sit on. And still today a rainy day will find me in Hastings or Havelock library, now often accompanied by my youngest. Corstorphine library was an old building, white plaster walls, high narrow windows operated by a long pole with a hook, and row upon row of tall wooden shelves packed with books. I remember it as always dark outside, a chill in the air, the streetlamps glittering with brittle, frosty light and the library windows glowing soft and warm although it as usually cold inside despite the heaters. The adult section was separate but children could browse there with permission. Near the checkout desk under the librarian's watchfull gaze ( I don't think she liked children ) was a low bookcase with an atlas on top. A big atlas, it must of been two foot high, and I could look at it. The whole world was within it, familiar places, distant places. Just dots, and names and squiggly lines really but a book of magical spells to me. There was no National Geographic channel in those days but I did not need it. With just the maps, my imagination, and the quietness I would be off to the strange lonely parts of the world. And this is where I first met the Pacific Ocean, at the very back of the atlas on the other side of the world, as far away from Edinburgh as you could go. A place so exotic, so distant, that I would never visit except in films or on the telly. And yet here I am on its shores. I have come a long way since then in distance and in thought.The Pacific Ocean. Life is a journey.

Picture of me at Cape Kidnappers by Nicola