Lenten Librarian: Day One

In solidarity with my school community, I am observing Lent for the first time in my life.  I thought about doing this last year, but was never able to come up with something meaningful.  This year, thanks to my Lent buddy Hermana Maite and her ideas about having a non-lame Lent, I have come up with a plan.  Here it is: I will develop and intentional friendship with myself.  Yep.  That's right.  I am going to focus inward and rediscover what makes me...me.

I became a mother almost two years ago.  Since then my identity has changed as much as you might expect.  Being a mother is transformative, and I have welcomed and embraced the changes it has brought to my life.  Perhaps a little too much.  I suddenly find myself in an unfamiliar position. I no longer know exactly who I am.

I have had many identity shifts in this life.  I've been popular, 'alternative', a band kid, a bookworm, a slacker, a teacher's pet, and a wallflower.  I've been a sorority girl, a war protester, a film student, an exchange student, and a graduate student.  I've been a Unitarian Universalist, a Presbyterian, an atheist, an agnostic, a secular humanist, and briefly a Buddhist.   I've been a hot dog vendor, a bank teller, a bookstore clerk, a teacher, and a librarian.  I've been a best friend, a girlfriend, an ex-girlfriend, now a wife, now a mother.

In this photo, I am an 11th-grade jazz musician.

This is the first time in all of those times that I seem to be mostly one thing.  Momma.

During this Lenten season, I will seek to find the other parts of me and introduce myself to them once again.  Transformation of an additive variety.

Why tell you this?  What does this have to do with Librarianship?
My methods on this Lenten journey will mirror those principals I teach in the Library.  I will read.  I will think.  I will seek information.  I will share information.  I will record information.  I will study this topic like I would study any other and see what conclusions I can draw.  It's a Lenten Research Project (or LeRP for short).

My first task is to identify my information needs.  What do I need to know in order to begin?  What do I want to discover along the way?  What resources can I use to help me further my efforts?

But that's for tomorrow....