"Ronnie, I've got a surprise for you;" I can still hear my Mother's words today. I was five years old in the summer between Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten at Seaton Lane School in Falls Church. She didn't give a hint what the surprise might be as I helped her out to the black and white Chrysler all the kids said looked like the Batmobile. Giving my mother a hand was what we called 'boy scout service' as she was physically weak due to teenage polio. My mother is weak in body but strong in spirit and is the greatest person I know.

We pulled up to the big brown building and walked in. It was the public library! The Fairfax County Library in Falls Church was overwhelming to my young eyes. The rule was if you could write your name you could have a library card. I sat and slowly drew out the big letters spelling my identity and received my first library card. It was a monumental day and the beginning of the one true love affair that has never, ever broken my heart. I love the library.

As a voracious reader as a small child and a regular at the public library when I graduated out of the Seaton Lane School after the first grade I immediately launched a career as a library volunteer at each public school I attended. My father, Big Red, was a wanderer. Sometimes he took us with him; sometimes he didn't. Either way change was the only constant in my young life but one thing was certain each school had a library.

At the age of ten I boldly applied for a job at the small Falls Church City Public Library. I must have been quite a sight but they allowed me to fill out the application and interview kindly informing me that my time for employment had not yet arrived. When Big Red finally left the scene for good a few years later I returned to that library with work permit in hand and landed that job. They still had my application on file. My book of poetry Washington Cats is named after my first poem describing the night he never returned home from work. Maybe someday I can read there.

In my unstable home life the library was a constant social home. I worked at the George C. Marshall High School library as a part of the CETA program for poor kids. Librarians were surrogate parents and I trusted them because they were guardians of a trusted space. Somewhere in my early teens I fell out of love with reading but continued to dwell in the library which today seems odd to me. I loved books yet rarely had the patience to finish one. As an adult I haunted used book shops and built up a collection. It is one of the great tragedies that the failure of my recent year led to the loss of my books. I didn't even have enough sense to sell them, they just vanished with all my belongings when my storage space payments fell behind.

   When TSA sent me on a year long vacation in 2005, I lived on a rather remote road in Baltimore County. My landlady believed in the righteousness of my cause, and even though it cost her she allowed me to stay despite my extreme poverty. Each day the local Randallstown library was open I walked the 2 1/2 miles down the windy road to make sure she saw I was doing my best. The library wasn't just a sanctuary it was my lifeline to the world. Thanks to the internet I could write and communicate and make sure I didn't vanish. One day a woman who worked at the library and lived on my street offered me a ride. During the next few months she was a source of kindness bringing me groceries and sparing me the walk when possible. I eventually tried to return the favor by testing to see if I could be a kidney donor for her husband but wasn't the right match. The thought of her kindness now is a warm reminder that I am not alone in this world.

When I was without a place to live three months ago a Facebook friend came to the rescue. I found myself in Franklin, Massachusetts, home of the first public library in America. As the stay became difficult and unpredictable I left early and spent my mornings with Ben Franklin writing and preparing for the day.

Again the library staff made this stranger feel right at home. I spent the entire day there. One hour reading, the next hour writing my book in longhand in an amazing study room.

The visit lasted twelve days and on the day of escape I walked to the library for the last time and spent the entire day as usual. Saying goodbye to the kind staff I walked to the commuter train station for the trip into Boston to take the Greyhound bus home to be homeless.

Arriving the next morning and gathering my wits, I returned to the one constant in life. The Wheaton public library would be my sanctuary during each day after a long night in a public park. I was careful not to make a spectacle of myself and not to disrespect the space by attempting to take a sink bath, fall asleep or become a public nuisance. Despite the deterioration of my appearance I was greeted with a friendly good morning each day as I arrived as if I were just another taxpayer. Thanks to the ability to communicate I received an offer for shelter here in North Carolina.

Now each morning I walk to the Iredell County Public Library and spend two hours online writing, looking for a job and not vanishing. It is a balm for my isolation. Like all the other libraries in the past I was greeted from day one with kindness and a library card. I'm writing this now in my usual space and the structure the public library gives each day must help in some way. Next month I'll join the reading club and maybe make a friend or two. I can't afford to haunt the local bars or even coffee shops but the library door is always open to me.

So as I sit here and wrap up this love letter I look around at the faces of strangers who are brothers and sisters in letters in this place of warmth and kindness and yes books. I overcame my reading problem and despite my failing eyesight and lack of formal education can enjoy Proust and Mailer and if an author appears on Charlie Rose I can put their book on my reserve list and stay connected with the latest trends in literature. I don't know if this is my final stop or my final year but one thing I know is that the library, my great love, abides.