a contender for my favorite

"I cannot live without books." - Thomas Jefferson

On my birthday this year (which I share with my daddio), I got a simple gift. I went out to my car the morning of my birthday and my dad had laid a card on the rearview mirror. I opened it and a piece of paper fell out. It was a little receipt that had "donation" written in the memo section and a lady's signature. That was it.

I immmediately called my dad.
"Thanks dad! Happy Birthday to you too!
You definitely beat me in the birthday exchange.
Where did you donate?"
Dad's response:
"You're welcome. You'll have to figure it out."
Me:
"You're kidding me, right?"
Dad:
"Nope. I will say it's something tangible you walk on. That's all I'll say. Good luck. You're a smart girl."

Vague and weirdo were the words I muttered back at him.
Every dad dreams to have a daughter like me,
always kind, never a name caller. bahaha.
So I sighed, grabbed my crackberry and googled the name that signed the receipt.
Nothing.

Then I called my friend Sarah and we brainstormed.
This is what we came up with.
"It's for a brick, it's gotta be for a brick."

So I called dad back:
"I figured out the riddle, it's for a brick, isn't it? Now tell me where."
Dad:
"nope."
So after me guessing WKU, Capitol Arts, Mountain Lake, ADPi, I gave up. And admittedly I forgot about the brick riddle. For over a month.
But dad did not.

On Mothers Day he called me and said "can I stop by your house? Do you have time to go for a drive?" So we drove til we got downtown and pulled into the public library parking lot. We walked over to the courtyard, which honestly I didn't know existed. It was a courtyard with bricks along the pathway, about 1/3 of the bricks having inscriptions. Some only names, some in memory of, some names of organizations.

And in the center was a metal chair, a piece of art I assume, with this inscription along the back of the chair:
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray!
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.

I immediately exclaimed: "Dad, that's from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory dad! One of my favorite quotes in the world! Isn't that the coolest quote ever? Why do people watch so much tv?!"
Dad smiled and said "I'm glad you knew what book that was from. That was the final test to get the prize. I made a donation to the public library in your name. Now all you have to do is figure out where you want the brick."

When I asked "why? what made you decide to buy this for me?"
His reply: "Because I've always been so proud of your love of reading,
of your fascination with all books. And I wanted a lasting testament to that pride."

I don't know what about this act that was so moving. It was a 26 year old girl with her 66 year old dad standing in a simple library courtyard on a Sunday afternoon. It was the simplicity of the moment I guess.

I am quite sure that was one of the happiest days of my life.

"dear me, i love a library! Because we are in Rome, this library is a beautiful old thing, and within it there is a courtyard garden which you'd never have guessed existed if you'd only looked at the place from the street. The garden is a perfect square, dotted with orange tress, and in the center, a fountain. This fountain was going to be a contender for my favorite in Rome, I could tell immediately, though it was unlike any I'd seen so far. It was not carved of imperial marble, for starters. This was a small green, mossy, organic fountain. It was like a shaggy leaking bush of ferns. (It looked, actually, exactly like the wild foliage growing out of the heard of that praying figure which the old medicine man in Indonesia had drawn for me.) The water shot up out of the center of this flowering shrub, then rained back down on the leaves, making a melancholy, lovely sound throughout the whole courtyard.
I found a seat under an orange tree and opened one of the poetry books I'd purchased yesterday. Louise Gluck. I read the first poem in Italian, then in English, and stopped short at this line:
"Dal centro della mia vita venne una grande fontana..."
"From the center of my life, there came a great fountain..."
I set the book down in my lap, shaking with relief.
-Elizabeth Elliot, "Eat Pray Love"