Libraries are Nervous System Care

The books aren’t looking at me.
They’re not expecting anything from me.
They’re not asking me to do or be or prove anything.

I walk down the aisles, long shelves filled with books, sometimes with my toddler, sometimes alone. We slow down. We soften. And then we land on something that makes us curious, or feel wonder, or want to create.

It feels like an exhale. Rest. Recharge.
And then an inhale that feels like fuel for life.

I love my library.

It’s one of the few places I can still go where the smells are the same as when I was four years old. Books. That sweet scent of pages that can calm me or excite me and always invite me in.

Libraries don’t ask anything of me.
And because of that, they give me so much.

Libraries are nervous system care.