As a kid, the library in downtown Astoria, OR, where I grew up, was a different country. It held all of the magic and possibility I would feel later travelling abroad. It was a hushed, ordered environment where books of all kinds lived, ready to share a new world with you.

From my house on Glasgow, it was a hilly ride to the library. I had to stand-up pump my Schwinn up and up hills that never seemed to end until finally, tacky with sweat, I tipped over the crest and whipped dreamlike down, down, down to the library. Inside, stacks upon stacks of books were housed on two different floors: afternoon-transformers, time-slippers and imagination-ticklers all of them. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the feeling of possibility, almost paralyzed by my choices.

At school, libraries were an eddy of calm in the swirling current of school. Librarians were sort of literary monks in my estimation. Wise people to seek out in times of trouble and confusion. I was admittedly of the nerd class for most of my schooling and the books they guided into my hands with a light touch felt big, important and worthwhile; and they made me feel bigger, more important and worthwhile by association. The epic adventure I discovered in the Hobbit as a fourth-grader filled me to bursting, reading the Catcher in the Rye as a high-schooler retooled my emotions and Sometimes a Great Notion during my college years made me weep.

When I moved to New York in the fall of 2009, I gravitated to the long wooden tables and the iconic green lamps of the Central Library. Under the gaze of thousands of books I wrote the first draft for Rules For Becoming A Legend in three blue notebooks.

There is nothing like a library. The ownership all who enter are entitled to feel, lends a momentum to the thought and reading done there. Important things happen in libraries, are recorded there, and so that importance slips onto visitors. They are institutions accessible to anyone with no motive other than to teach and entertain. For everything humans get wrong, we got this thing, libraries, damn right.

These days my bike is better and the hills are less intense, but I still pump those pedals and whip towards the always-welcoming, possibility-multiplying front doors of my library whenever I can.