way is in the sand
flowing between shingle dune
door opens and shuts

my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts

In Six Poems by Samuel Beckett as published in The collected poems of Samuel Beckett : a critical edition (New York: Graove Press, 2014).

According to Wikipedia, “Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. Written in both English and French, his literary and theatrical works feature bleak, impersonal, and tragicomic episodes of life, coupled with black comedy and literary nonsense. As a key proponent of Irish literature, he is best known for his tragicomedy play Waiting for Godot (1953), and is widely regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century, credited with transforming modern theatre. For his foundational contribution to both literature and theatre, Beckett received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature, “for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation.”

That’s about all I know about Mr. Beckett.

About his famous play, Waiting for Godot, Wikipedia says, “In Waiting for Godot, the two main characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), spend their days waiting for someone named Godot, who they believe will provide them with salvation. They pass the time with conversations, physical routines, and philosophical musings, but Godot never arrives.”

What sticks in my mind is a night way back in history when I was sitting with my sisters and there were telling stories about being in Ann Arbor, Michigan and odd things that they experienced.

I was pretty young and waiting for my turn when I would leave home and ‘take my place’ at the family school in Ann Arbor.

The stories covered life in dorms, odd professors, odder students and food.

Then they got on the subject of what was known as the Grad Library.

The Grad Library was two buildings, one built in 1915 and designed by Albert Kahn, an aritect who designed almost every major building between Ann Arbor and the Detroit River.

It was a stat of the art library where students requests books at the reference desk and library staff and only library staff entered the stacks that had thick glass flooring to let in as much light as possible.

Fast forward to 1970 and an 8 story modern building, built in what one of my Art History Professors called, The Late Ramada Inn Style was built behind the original Grad Library to hold what was called the world’s largest library collection of books.

The two buildings were cobbled together,

The floors didn’t line up.

It seems like th 4th floor was the same on either building but above and below the 4th floor you weren’t sure where you might end up.

Then you got into 4a and 4b and the basements and the subbasements.

The flooring had taped color coded lines that were supposed to help you find your way around but most folks figured the lines were there just to help you get lost.

Where am I going with this you ask?

As I remember it, my sister Janet had taken over the conversation and told a story of trying to find a certain book that had been recommend by a Professor.

You go in and you go down and you go around and you go up and find an elevator and you just keep going she said.

She was looking for this specific book and had written the location on a notecard back at the card catalog and I guess I should mention that the Library used Library of Congress filing, not Dewey Decimal, and that just added to the fun of finding a specific book.

My sister kept at it, down and around and bookcase after bookcase until, finally, she found the spot where the book should be.

There was a space.

There was no book.

But there was also a note taped to the shelf.

Janet held her breathe a moment then said … the note said, tell Godot, I left.

My sisters fell apart like this was the funniest thing they had ever heard.

I gotta find this library was what I remember thinking.

Post Script: I did find that library and it is a close to heaven on earth for someone like me and I experience the labryonth that it was of passage ways and hidden stairways and a 6 story stair well that you could scale (An experience that with today’s security cameras is no longer possible). But for the book, or play, I think I got a copy when I was too young and couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Maybe it is time to revisit?

One quote that was on the fringes of my memory comes to me for this day and age … and I had to look it up …

“Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful”

and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts