Mosaic of Minerva in the Library of Congress

Some people sniffle at sappy old movies. Other people get weepy at weddings or on their child’s first day of school. Me? I apparently cry in the Library of Congress, but this is to get ahead of my story…

First of all, let me say that I had expected today to be a good day, so I was entirely unprepared for what would follow. Mr. Dray had taken the day off from work and he chauffeured me to what I must confess is still one of my favorite cities in the world, Washington DC.

I was scheduled to do a reading. The sky was bright and shiny. The weather was pleasant. We arrived at the right place at the right time in the Madison Building without hassle.

I met up with friends. Then came the readings themselves, which were fantastic, if I do say so myself. I enjoyed them all, but it’s probably my fascination with mythical re-tellings that made me fall in love with Nan Fry’s wolf story and Anne Lane Sheldon’s Rumplestiltskin rendition.

After the readings, I had the chance to talk with David J. Williams with whom I appear to have many things in common. It isn’t every day that you meet someone else who is willing to actually own a copy of Oliver Stone’s Alexander. (If you like smart, intense, geo-political science fiction, check out his Autumn Rain trilogy from Bantam Spectra.) I also had a delightful lunch with authors Craig Gidney and R. R. Angell and a bunch of other wonderful folks I won’t name only because I know what you really want to read about is the crying.

Okay, so I’ll get to it. After lunch, the Recommending Officer for Science Fiction & Fantasy at the Library of Congress, Colleen R. Cahill, gave us a tour. Not just any tour…but a super special tour, in which we navigated secret underground passages, and slipped past signs that said ‘Official Access Only.’

Now, the Library of Congress is nifty on a purely conceptual level. A gathering of knowledge for posterity; you have to love it. But the concept doesn’t do the place justice. When we walked into the Jefferson Building, I was giddy. Come on, who doesn’t love gilded ceilings and elevators with elaborately carved wooden walls and shiny brass bars? Bronze statuary gives me thrills. I may have a fetish for marble niches and mosaics. I marveled at the way thousands of visitors have worn the stairs uneven and I grinned like an imbecile at the wavy vellum of the Gutenberg Bible.

New delights awaited me around every pillar. I stumbled along on the tour in a state of book-loving delirium until it happened. I looked up to find myself in a round room–an enormous circle of old books under plexiglass. I shivered even before Colleen uttered the words, “And these were Thomas Jefferson’s books. The original collection that he sold to Library of Congress.”

Right about then is when I lost it. Heart thumping. Sweaty palms. Lower lip atremble. I blinked back startled tears as I realized I was completely surrounded by … pure awesome. I have no idea what anybody else said. I think there were plenty of wows. I was a snuffling, emotional fool! Yes, I had a little melt-down right there in public; though I took pains to cover it up!

Those who know me well probably could have predicted this. I have an embarrassing habit of tearing up whenever faced with anything having to do with my historical passions. In the past, I’ve gone weepy in the presence of ancient Egyptian artifacts, and again when allowed to actually touch the desk of Thomas Jefferson at the State Department. There was also the time that I saw pictures of ruins in Algeria and realized I was looking at the very spot that Cleopatra Selene had walked.

I’m not sure what moves me so much about such things, but it might have to do with my desire to understand the past so as to fully participate in the present. For example, people who know me well also know that I love election day. I’m the girl who wakes up early on election day and buys donuts for everybody in line. (And yes, I wear the sticker!)

This year, Maryland has early voting. That means that not only did I get to press-my-nose-against-the-plexiglass of Thomas Jefferson’s books, but I also got to vote! On the way home from DC, we went to the community center, did our civic duty, and had a great dinner at a Korean restaurant.

So, I was wrong about today being a good day. Today was a great day! Mini-meltdown and all.