Frank Chimero · The Good Room

Which brings me back to my seat at the library. It was a Tuesday afternoon, cold and quiet, the day wrapped up in that winter sun which gives the sharpest light.

I thought about how to fill out that vague painting of heaven, asking what we want, what we need. What could be up there in those clouds? My dream wasn’t hard to find. It was all around me: a comfortable, lofty, and shared space where everything is borrowed, always circulating. This is a good room for all of us.

There’s the student engaged in her studies, the retiree finally getting to what he has put off for far too long, the family vibrating with anticipation for their trip, the kid in headphones absorbed in making the song he’s about to give to the world. Then there’s me, wondering if this place means as much to them as it does to me. What’s it worth? The money only matters so you can get to this way of being: to have the time, find the opening, get the chance to only be. It takes something to get here, and yet it doesn’t. We all walked right in. I was happy enough to sit and appreciate it all. Maybe that painting of heaven was right—nothing else was necessary.