Category Archives: Reflections

This has been a blog post in the making for a few months now after I left a Pilates session and realized how similar fabulous controlologists, the term Joe Pilates gave to his now namesake physical workout, and librarians are.

The studio I belong to is owned and operated by Nuhar, whose background in physical therapy led her to become an instructor and run a studio focused on the original and basic formula Pilates created. It’s not a loud obnoxious space packed with people with pulsating music churning out attendance numbers like newer studios are doing. And that absence creates the environment to take what we’re doing seriously. With focus and control, we’re stretching, moving, and strengthening our muscles. A skilled instructor like Nuhar is the crux: to use the apparatus or simply just a mat and have us leave stronger and flexible. She’s attentive to everyone’s body that day and any day they show up. She’s correcting moves and adjusting positions to ensure we’re getting the most out of the exercise while also demonstrating it herself AND cueing us at the same time. And she takes requests and completely adapts a 45-minute session based on a body part, an ache or pain, or a piece of equipment someone wants to use. I can only imagine that Nuhar’s brain is like Temple Grandin’s, with one comment like “foam roller”, Nuhar’s memory of endless exercises using a foam roller melds cohesively into a full session in the span of a minute or two of computation.

So why did I bring up librarians? I think we’re similar to contrololgists. Why? We curate an environment to take information seeking and gathering seriously. We focus on strengthening minds through the act of learning and reading and skill-building. We’re attentive to everyone’s needs and act accordingly. And in a series of conversations we’re matching books and resources to someone’s information needs. In the span of a few minutes of readers advisory, handfuls of books spin through my mind to share with that person (plus maybe a few recent articles or a newsreel I watched).

Working the body, working the mind. Isn’t that the perfect combination?

I’ve advised for our school’s Japanese Culture Club, formerly Anime Club for eighteen of the nineteen years I’ve been a high school librarian. I could wax poetic about the students I’ve met over the years who I have watched grow up and the activities that we have participated in along the way that give me warm and fuzzy feelings including a recent summer trip to Japan with six high school boys. So here’s one more.

Our club meets weekly for an hour and a half, sometimes two hours if we have fewer weeks in a month to have club. For our first meeting back in the new year, I wanted us to focus on Japanese new year traditions. I read articles. I watched videos. And shimekazari caught my eye– a decoration that is either purchased or homemade, which is placed at torii gates of shrines in the new year to keep evil spirits away. They function the same way in homes. Brilliant! I moseyed over to the craft store and filled a cart of items to create our own while watching anime (which is the mainstay of the club).

Fast forward two hours and as I walked out to my car with my own shimekazari in hand, I couldn’t help but be excited about their excitement at creating their own.

One student made hers “matcha themed” with lots of green, others leaned into the floral aspects, while others leaned into the paper aspects all to create unique hangings to ward off evil. Their creativity knew no bounds. When it comes together to be an authentic experience that is low-pressure to combat the high-pressure everyday school experience, I consider it a win. Often at the end of the year, these kinds of activities are the ones they remember the most, surprisingly. I know I will every time I look it hanging up.