Don't slow me down, I have to catch up to ....

where I thought I should be by now. Two days of training means three days of mail to open and process, most of it will be ILLs ordered and new books and serial publications. There are patrons with information requests to fill, new reading and listening desires to express and email from above asking for my attention. Plus a meeting with the Associate in charge of Programs, the library being one of them. So I focus and attack and don't get in my way or try to distract me, I am driven. On Tuesday evening I will blow up when someone tells me that another librarian told him that she didn't have any problem getting what he wanted, I told him to tell her on Friday that I am incompetent - and if he doesn't tell her what I said -- then he will be failing to comply. I then returned to my mellow helpful self, with the next patron not trying to play me, I should have emptied the library of the ninety plus patrons with nothing to do and no where to go, but didn't. So I go home to dinner and my wife asks how it was, and I say busy, always lots to do.

I get hot soup, a salad and a nice light meal, I get to re-introduce myself to the little snow tiger trying to adopt our home as prime mouse hunting territory - that is some purr pouring out and I think about what went on at work.

One point in the two days stands out. I was at the computer ordering materials and typing as fast as I could without getting fingers out of pace and place, driven and focused. The library clerk from the chapel sticks his head inside the door and starts telling me his good news - his address and plan has been accepted and he will be getting out. He tells me all about it, and I am typing faster staying on the target, getting all the letters down in order, and he adds a bit to his story sharing his life. I stop, turn the turret of my tank and blow him out of the door. Well, not really, I looked straight at him and engaged in conversation, my goal is to have him leave and I get back to catching up with lack of progress (which isn't very fast). But the waves of joy in his face, posture and animation beat over me, this is one very happy inmate - he is going to get out. He has a job, a place to live and approval from the nameless folks that have kept him in prison so long. I share his happiness, it seems I am one of the few staff that he is taking the time to share his joy with, and having seen him on many of his darker days, this explosion of happiness is warm and powerful. He apologizes a couple of times from distracting me, bubbles happily some more, asks about my email address so he can contact me when he is out and successful - after I tell him I am in the phone book, can be located on the internet, Googled and such. He copies my whole name and goes and quietly sits the remainder of the hour out. I go back to work, trying to get faster trying to work harder - although tonight one of the inmates noticing my explosion tells me not to work so hard - I look at him and say I don't know any other way to work. I don't - I have been well broken into this pattern.

Still, the joy and warmth of that inmate and his excitement warms my memory, and I will have to, in my quieter moments, thank him for sharing that great feeling, the feeling of freedom and opportunity. You don't know what you have, until it is gone. I will have to thank him.