prompt: Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?
The fridge rumbles and the coffee grinder roars sporadically in the background. Pieces of conversations become audible as a multitude of voices fill the air. All of the sounds and voices create an environment of continuous movement, yet it is an atmosphere where I feel most calm and content. The hustle and bustle only add to the timeless feel of this place as the world moves around me while I sit quietly in my chair. This environment is one in which I have found I work best in and have come to learn to take a step away from my own life and appreciate the many others around me. This place is Barnes and Noble bookstore.
As a child, the bookstore was a magical place where I attended story time and played with the train set in the children's section with my brother. As I grew older, the countless books lining the dark, wooden bookshelves became my playground. Each book represented a window through which I could peer into someone else's life, and sometimes the book became a door through which I could step and find myself in another world.
But this quiet realm did not last; I was part of a world where time seemed to get shorter and more sparse. Spending hours in the wooden chair underneath the painted background of Pooh and his friends became impossible since "reality" continuously barged in to remind me of the rising stacks of homework that I had to do, the endless hours of violin practice I had to accomplish, and the numerous other responsibilities I was obligated to fulfill. It seemed that my days spent in the worlds of Percy Jackson, Anne of Green Gables, and Harry Potter were over.
In a way, this was true. I gradually transferred to the teen section of the bookstore and the café became my new favorite sitting spot. Fortunately, however, I still found some time to indulge in books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (one of my all-time favorites) and I realized that I just never grow out of other ones (the Harry Potter series will forever be a classic for me). Surprisingly, while I spent hours at Barnes and Noble doing work, I also discovered new "windows" to look through by overhearing snippets of conversations of the people around me: grandparents planning their trip to Europe, a group of old-time friends discussing the prospects on time-travel, and a boy and his family conversing with a tutor about why they had emigrated from Pakistan to the United States. It struck me just how many different lives pass through this one store, connected only by the place itself and by the occasional overlapping footsteps on the wooden floor. The world suddenly becomes very large as I realize just how many lives the earth is home to. It's like that iconic scene in movies, where I sit in a corner of the bookstore café, insignificant, and all the other people move in a blur around me.
We are not always aware of the lives that exist around us and the extent to which our actions and words affect others, but we all live more closely and similarly than we think. Barnes and Noble has helped to give me this realization; a place where I used to play with trains and be read to has become a place where I can still escape into my own timeless world yet be aware of and have a greater appreciation for the world around me. For me, Barnes and Noble will always be a timeless place where the world stops for a moment and where I become a small part of everyone else's lives by being that girl in the corner typing on her laptop, reading, or just sipping a pumpkin spice latte. Perhaps I have also unknowingly affected another observer in a similar way.
The fridge rumbles and the coffee grinder roars sporadically in the background. Pieces of conversations become audible as a multitude of voices fill the air. All of the sounds and voices create an environment of continuous movement, yet it is an atmosphere where I feel most calm and content. The hustle and bustle only add to the timeless feel of this place as the world moves around me while I sit quietly in my chair. This environment is one in which I have found I work best in and have come to learn to take a step away from my own life and appreciate the many others around me. This place is Barnes and Noble bookstore.
As a child, the bookstore was a magical place where I attended story time and played with the train set in the children's section with my brother. As I grew older, the countless books lining the dark, wooden bookshelves became my playground. Each book represented a window through which I could peer into someone else's life, and sometimes the book became a door through which I could step and find myself in another world.
But this quiet realm did not last; I was part of a world where time seemed to get shorter and more sparse. Spending hours in the wooden chair underneath the painted background of Pooh and his friends became impossible since "reality" continuously barged in to remind me of the rising stacks of homework that I had to do, the endless hours of violin practice I had to accomplish, and the numerous other responsibilities I was obligated to fulfill. It seemed that my days spent in the worlds of Percy Jackson, Anne of Green Gables, and Harry Potter were over.
In a way, this was true. I gradually transferred to the teen section of the bookstore and the café became my new favorite sitting spot. Fortunately, however, I still found some time to indulge in books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (one of my all-time favorites) and I realized that I just never grow out of other ones (the Harry Potter series will forever be a classic for me). Surprisingly, while I spent hours at Barnes and Noble doing work, I also discovered new "windows" to look through by overhearing snippets of conversations of the people around me: grandparents planning their trip to Europe, a group of old-time friends discussing the prospects on time-travel, and a boy and his family conversing with a tutor about why they had emigrated from Pakistan to the United States. It struck me just how many different lives pass through this one store, connected only by the place itself and by the occasional overlapping footsteps on the wooden floor. The world suddenly becomes very large as I realize just how many lives the earth is home to. It's like that iconic scene in movies, where I sit in a corner of the bookstore café, insignificant, and all the other people move in a blur around me.
We are not always aware of the lives that exist around us and the extent to which our actions and words affect others, but we all live more closely and similarly than we think. Barnes and Noble has helped to give me this realization; a place where I used to play with trains and be read to has become a place where I can still escape into my own timeless world yet be aware of and have a greater appreciation for the world around me. For me, Barnes and Noble will always be a timeless place where the world stops for a moment and where I become a small part of everyone else's lives by being that girl in the corner typing on her laptop, reading, or just sipping a pumpkin spice latte. Perhaps I have also unknowingly affected another observer in a similar way.