How a library changed my life
In 2010 I left the city where I grew up, Rome, for Paris, where I studied Art History at the university.
I was eager to deepen my knowledge and passion for Art and History despite my parents lack of enthusiasm because “how will you find a job with this degree” ? Freshly arrived in the French capital at 17, I was on my own, FINALLY and omg I'm on my own! I was studying a lot, working part-time, and I was busy fighting demons from the past that I naively thought would disappear once I changed countries. I was also very busy with boy dramas and creating new friendships. There was little to no time for self care, leisure and hobbies, there was just too much going on all the time, mostly in my head.
During my Parisian years I discovered the library of the National Institute for Art History, that the students would simply call by its French acronym, the INHA (Institut National de l'Histoire de l'Art). The library is located in the elegant deuxieme arrondissement, next to Bourse, galeries and Rue Sainte Anne, known for being the street of Asian restaurants, which meant I could combine a long day of studying with a warm and comforting ramen bowl for lunch.
I discovered this library by chance : I was googling where can I find a specific book that I needed for a project and it appeared in that library database. I checked the criteria to request a book/study there and in theory I was not allowed yet because the library was only available for Master students, Phd students, teachers and other professionals. I was in my last year of Bachelor back then but I decided to try my luck anyway and play dumb ( “sorry I'm not from here!”). I entered the main building, crossed the inner courtyard and I arrived at the library. I pushed the door and I paused to absorb the beauty of the place. The library was a tall and oval room with rows of tables and rows of bookshelves on the walls. Dark green and brown were the dominant colors and the place smelled like old, but in a good way. I shyly went to the reception desk feeling like a fraud and hoping I wouldn't be rejected, but it seems that the conditions were more flexible : I was allowed a card with 5 entries! I went to my assigned table and the staff would give me a piece of paper where I could write down the titles and authors of the books I needed and they would bring them to your table. I finally had access to old and rare books that I couldn't find in the other libraries.
Here I was waiting for my books and looking up at the ancient ceiling featuring painted oculi with the name of 16 famous libraries : Babylon, Alexandria, Ninive, Rome, Carthage, Paris, Byzantium, Washington, Florence, Athens, Berlin, London, Vienna, Thebes, Peking, Jerusalem. I was in awe. Here I am, sitting under History, traveling with my mind, grateful for the democratic access of culture. I also thought about the National Library of Belgrade, which was bombed and destroyed in 1941 under Nazi attack. For its first target in the city, Hitler personally and specifically ordered his lieutenant to first bomb the National Library of the city, home to irreplaceable archives, a war crime and an act of cultural cleansing.
I needed to use my 5 entries with parsimony, meaning I would wait to have enough books to consult in order to make the most of my limited time at the INHA before I could have unlimited access the following year as a Master student (aka V.I.P).
For my Master thesis I chose a rather obscure painting by Diego Velazquez, Christ at the column, (1628-1629) and so I spent my academic year at the INHA researching the religious, cultural and artistic environment of XVIIth century Seville.
I always felt drawn towards Baroque painters (probably due to my Roman upbringing) : dramatic, severe, ecstatic, dark, piercing. Italian Art of that time is already a well researched subject and for this reason I decided to explore the Spanish Masters instead.
What artists and previous iconography influenced Velazquez for the conception of his painting? How did he have access to these images? What was the cultural environment of the artistic elite in Seville?Which religious literature was he reading ? Which plays did he see, which church did he attend?
I chose to study Art History because it seemed like the best discipline to understand humankind and History. When you look at art it's never just a material relic and by studying it you can recreate a moment in time. I might have been a student, living in Paris, in the year 2014 but libraries allow us to time travel and get as close as possible to the original context in which Velazquez lived and created. The rich resources of the INHA allowed me centuries later to connect the dots and stories of Europe. This is abundance and wealth. It was exciting, electric, and humbling to be part of that dialogue.
I was just a student, but studying at this library made me feel so much more than that, I would open the door and step into my dreams and potential, I was an art historian, a woman on a mission and I took this role very (too) seriously. I felt passion and purpose, two things I desperately seem to be lacking now in my creative projects.
I was so excited to go to the library! I would look forward to waking up earlier on a Saturday and study at the INHA, no sense of dread “ugh I gotta go to the library” but rather “I get to go the library”! Saturday was my favorite day because I could stay longer at the library, meanwhile during the week it was trickier because I had classes and could only go for few hours. I would never have imagined that spending my day in a library, on a Saturday, in my early 20's could make me so happy!
Why did it make me so happy?
Intellectual stimulation has always been the deepest cure for me, very basically said : learning something new makes me feel alive. I am a curious spirit who expressed unquenchable thirst for knowledge ever since I was a child and I've learned to love my big brain for that despite the other issues it was giving me. I was excited to go the INHA because it meant learning something new each time, I would go in and leave as a new person. Libraries are like magic in a way, they bring inner transformation and renewal.
Going to the library meant taking care of my inner world and because learning makes me feel alive and happy, it was a nourishing activity for the brain, soul and self, and by simply feeling good I could connect to my inner abundance. Let's normalize going to the library as self care!
Not only was I excited and happy to just be there, but going to the INHA also meant connecting to a bigger purpose : each visit was a progress into my thesis, I was working toward a goal and taking actions, gaining new insights and information for my research and I would leave satisfied, proud and fulfilled.
Studying at the INHA gave me for the first time a sense of community and belonging, I felt inadequate everywhere else, but here I felt like Home. Normal people go here, so I guess I'm normal too? I'm in a place like this, I made it here, I can't be white trash right?
The library acted as a shelter from all my anxieties and insecurities, all the I'm not enough and I'm too much, I was trying hard to fit with friends, family and romantic relationships, but here I didn't have to do anything, I was just being me and it was enough. I was sharing the same environment with other fellow nerds, intelligent people, researchers, creatives, teachers, writers, students of all ages and background, and we were all in this together, each one humbly on its own path and research topic. My introvert paradise.
According to writer Anais Nin, we should all be encouraged, especially as women and creatives she says, to nourish that inner world or “inner well”, and the more we nourish the deeper it runs, eventually merging into the universal well, the underground river where all streams meet and connect. I was feeling that interconnectedness at the INHA.
I was one of them and I belonged there, among the smart and interesting people. I felt worthy, right under the Alexandria spot.
I would look around and see rows of dedicated nerds with their own stories and dreams and gifts, I would look up at the ceiling with the painted library names, feeling part of something bigger. I guess the word for that is transcendence. The INHA was a place of connection to the self and to the collective, the universal well.
In my early 20's I was still burdened by my past, dealing with untreated and undiagnosed bipolar disorder, struggling with extreme moods, low self esteem and desperately seeking validation in men, dreaming about a romantic relationship that would save me, but this library gave me, for few hours, all the validation I needed, its silence whispering you are smart, you are valuable, you matter, you are worthy, you have so much to give.
Back then I was buried deep under the repressed traumas and insecurities to see all the abundance within and realize that it was not confined to the walls of a building, and so I would go there to feel the greatness and the erudition of these authors, hoping it would be contagious, but self worth is not transferable is it. Perhaps the library was simply a mirror that revealed the qualities within, a grounding space where all the layers of tensions I was carrying would melt. Like a meditation it would reorder my thoughts and connect to the essential, which is feeling good.
The INHA was a sanctuary for my turbulent mental health: once I stepped inside, I was not this unstable, bulimic, sexually repressed, depressed and suicidal person anymore, I was finally at peace. I could redirect my frustrations into one goal, I would cut through the chaos within with intellectual validation and stimulation, which sounds like a healthy coping mechanism now that I think about it!
The library offered a safe space during the transitional and confusing time of early adulthood. It was a non judgmental place where I could isolate, replenish and ground myself in its steadiness. At the INHA I was deep into another world, so distant from the real world where I was gasping for air. I was protected by Athena herself, and I was friends with wise dead people, virgins and angels. Culture has always been my refuge against the harshness of the real world.
It was nice to experience the illusion of getting my shit together for few hours. But was I simply wearing a mask, hiding behind some vague and abstract elitism or did I catch a glimpse of genuine inner peace?
Despite this love letter, the INHA is not what I would describe as a warm environment, literally and figuratively speaking, the library was cold and tall like Paris, but also cold and silent...like a cathedral? The commitment, devotion and passion of its people instilled a sense of sacredness to the space, where secular monks would worship the Gods of Knowledge. Perhaps libraries are the cathedrals of the atheist.
Everyone had their nose buried in a book, hoping to write down as much as possible, gulping down a sandwich for lunch, quick cigarette breaks and 40 cents coffee at the vending machine. I would rarely see my actual university mates, since they preferred the much warmer and lighter Bibliotheque Sainte Genevieve.
Writing about that specific space, time and place, what it represented to me and what it gave me, who I was, I can't help but sigh with nostalgia and feel a certain sorrow, because why am I not that person anymore?
Perhaps I am still grieving (for how long?) the loss of my previous ambition and the career I envisioned for myself. I am a writer now, currently writing my first screenplay, and I am desperately trying to reconnect with the driven, purposeful, motivated student I used to be. It's hard to connect when you are buried under guilt and self sabotage. Guilt because I never pursued my P.H.D like I planned, as I moved to Amsterdam in search of a fresh start since Paris was draining me and worsening my mental health. Self sabotage because I didn't forgive myself for changing my dreams after all the hard work and sacrifices. Part of me still feels like I failed even though Amsterdam was the best thing that could have happened to me and I do not regret this decision, and yet I can't stop snoozing, hitting pause on my dreams, waiting for future external circumstances in order to feel worthy of writing my screenplay.
At the INHA I was ambitious and not afraid of the unknown. Now I'm afraid because “I don't how how to write a screenplay” but I also didn't know how to write a Master thesis back then yet I didn't get hung up on technicalities and self doubt, I would just show up to the library, do my work and trust that I will be fine, because I believed I could do it.
Now I'm just wallowing in self pity and procrastination and guilt, a vicious cycle that I suprisingly didn't know back then. I'm still holding on to this idea of who I used to be. I am longing for that feeling of being devoted and obsessed with a personal project, like I was with my Master thesis, but I'm too scared to let myself feel the passion, to commit, to care, because look at how it ended. I'm afraid to be heartbroken and devastated.
“ Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore”1
Walking down memory lane and writing about this library, I can see that I don't need to become more this or that because the qualities I'm trying to summon have always been within me, that past version of myself that I admire is still here and I need to show her it's safe to care again and to show up for my purpose, just like I did it back then.
I'm also realizing how much I miss being a student! The excitement of walking into a classroom and knowing your world will be expanded! You don't need to be enrolled in an academic degree for this. Being a student is first and foremost a mindset that you can cultivate everyday. How do you connect to your inner student? You embody the attitude of a curious and humble beginner. Complacency is the death of growth. Maybe I can reconnect with my self by reconnecting with the curious child and eternal student within me.
Writing about the INHA is a reminder that the abundance I saw around me was a reflection of the abundant self I was, it was more than just a library, it was a world, a validation I projected and created for myself, a haven that solaced me and uplifted my mood. The INHA was the backdrop of a formative chapter of my life, a place of inspiration, growth, belonging and where the permanent rainy clouds above my head would make space for a sunny day.
The INHA is the cornerstone of my identity as a writer : it's where I committed to my first and long term writing project which revealed what writing and the act of creation mean to me.
The balance between research and learning.
Theory and practice.
The past and my present input.
Connecting to the self and to the world.
A process of intellectual and emotional photosynthesis.
The virtuous and harmonious cycle of receiving and giving.
Ultimately resulting in a something new, a new piece of the puzzle, and by writing I become part of that universal dialogue.
1Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things, 2012
