I spent the last month, the whole month, trying not to get my hopes up about becoming a full time librarian.

I wanted to be a librarian that organized ‘storytime’ programs for toddlers, and Reading Clubs for school children. I wanted to use my research and librarian skills to find books for patrons, young and old. I wanted to have a shelf of recommended books from best sellers lists and reading clubs.

I wanted to be a librarian just like Betty Davis.

She was the librarian at the tiny humble Port Elgin Public Library when I was a busy mother. That was her name! And she did, in fact, have beautiful eyes, very sparkly and full of life. The library was in a back room of the old fire department building but it was neat as a pin and well used by the community.

Sometimes I would gather my children and we would bike in from Baie Verte. When we arrived, dropping our bikes outside with a crash, she was always delighted. She often had a small craft set up for visiting children and sometimes, when it seemed like just the right time, she would offer to make tea.

While we were homeschooling the library was our main outing. We read dozens of books a week, and we enjoyed the outing and the socializing. My children played games on the computer or researched a new topic and I chatted with Betty. She was a delightful person and she truly added joy to our lives.

I wanted to be able to do that. Be useful, be part of the community. Be a respected part of the community. Offer my services, do what I know how to do and do it with love and attention.

I dared to dream for a few days. I told myself that if I got the job I would get a 8 X 10 photo of Betty and frame it for a permanent spot on the wall. I dreamed about making the children’s corner more cozy.

I allowed myself to feel the comfort and pleasure of a plan coming to fruition. I have dreamed of this job for many years and I began to train for it years ago.

I began my long distance library studies classes from Memorial University long before ‘remote’ learning became so ubiquitous. I took one course a semester for many years and graduated in 2012. At some points I was home schooling three kids, and studying as well as writing for the newspaper The Times and Transcript and I am not sure how I did it!

But I loved being a student and I worked hard at it, getting high grades. The time I took to study was time just for myself and my future. I would have worked at any library but my specific aim was to run the Port Elgin Public Library when my friend retired.

I volunteered to organize reading clubs at our little library: the Nancy Drew Reading Club that I planned with the help of my oldest child, Rose, was packed with puzzles and games; the Hackmatack Reading Club that a pile of active children enjoyed, especially my middle child and his gang of buddies, was full of science and engineering experiments.

But when Betty retired the province hired a woman who had moved from Ontario with a MA in Library Studies. I don’t remember that I even got an interview. I remember that Betty was a bit peeved that the new librarian was given a much better deal than what Betty had received in all her years of dedication. Betty was paid for part time hours and given no retirement fund. Her Sunday afternoons writing reports or raising funds for the library were unpaid.

However, she was happy to retire and spend more time with her husband, a retired teacher and coach. I remember once when he brought her flowers to the library. They were a lovely couple but Betty was soon alone in her home without her husband who died too soon. They never got to take the motorcycle adventure they were planning.

After her husband died I would drop by her home with snacks or flowers and my sweet children to cheer her. We would have a good gab and a cup of tea. One sad day only a few years ago, during early COVID, she had a stoke and collapsed in her basement. They revived her when she was found and I managed one visit to the hospital in Moncton before they closed everything down and I could no longer see her.

When we arrived at the hospital her eyes lit up. She had aphasia and could not speak but I am sure that she was absolutely there. Her eyes were clear and expressive. If not for the covid lockdowns I would have visited regularly but I never saw her again after a nurse whisked her away for physiotherapy.

I had such a lovely hour long interview with the three woman from the province, one of whom would have been my boss. I was so ready for the interview and the job. I was optimistic. They needed someone right away. I had the education, the experience, the passion and the ‘calling’.

But after a month of checking their website (they have a policy that they do not contact the people they have interviewed unless they get the job) I woke one day to see that the position was filled. Clearly it was not me.

What was I thinking? I was brought back to earth with thud. My dreams were just dreams. I vowed not to apply to any more jobs. I turn sixty years old this summer and I am done with trying to fit in and be part of the community.

What had I been thinking? I must have been delusional. If I had been hired I would have been working for the government.

And this same library that I was going to dedicate all my energy and time to is the same library that broke my heart during the early COVID years when I was being so strong and resilient.

I dropped by to order a book after the new mandates had just been put in place. I was still having trouble believing that the people I knew would obey this madness. Surely my local café will not ask for a passport? It can’t be true that they will block my child from the cinema, or me from my library?

But when I tried to enter the one room library, now housed in a large room at the local school, I was turned away. The librarian and I both had on our colorful and futile cloth masks and she was seated behind a plexiglass border. There was no one else in the library. When she cheerfully announced that I could not enter the room without proof of vaccination, I did not know what to say. l started to cry, and I left.

Nothing had made me cry up to that point. Not my husband losing his job, not my youngest son being blocked from everything he loved, including his music lessons, not the shocking revelation that my two older children were going to spend Christmas together, separate from the three of us at home who were so in need of company.

Libraries are my safe place. My second home. They are the only place in our society that is free of cash and transactions. They exist to disseminate ideas and art. They are free and open to everyone. They will not censor books or ideas. Ideally, they protect books and information, cataloging the collection so it is accessible to everyone. The library is the pinnacle of our democratic society.

I wanted to work there and protect the books and the ideals of our society. But I was dreaming. My ideals and principles are becoming increasingly ‘retro’ and obsolete.

I dreamed that I could be judged on my merits, my experience, and my education when it appears that my unvaccinated status is likely still an issue. Or maybe I am just a freak, too old, too cheerful, too hard working. Too something. I can’t say for sure because I have no way to speak to anyone about the decision.

I wanted to believe we could leave COVID behind. I wanted to believe in the life we once had, a simpler time to be sure. I can see it in my eyes in old photos. I am so free of fear.

And now we have our government knowingly allowing the Chinese government to interfere in our political system, and we, the people are not pulling this government down? Voting for non-confidence? Anything?

Real trouble is coming down the line, there are curdling, simmering plans for more government control of your ‘private’ life. Control of what you eat, how you farm, what you drive, where you can travel and how you use your money are all in the pipeline. This is real and acknowledging it would be a start, but resistance is absolutely essential.

And I dreamed of being a librarian! How ironic.

Libraries and librarians are the key to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. In these dark days it is all the more important that the position of librarian be held by a compliant, unquestioning person.