This week’s hidden place is calm and comfy. It can be enjoyed at any point during the day and is the perfect place to work on the massive amounts of end-of-the-semester assignments or take a nap and forget your troubles. Make sure to bring your license and registration (Biola ID) before you set out.
From Jesus, head toward the Biola library. As you make your way past the Fluor Fountain, be sure to notice the blooming roses that surround your path. Continue along and pass the bells, turning left to reveal the shady trees that line the entrance to the house of books. I hope the Christmas lights that deck these trees will soon be illuminated.
Walk into the library. Slide your card, walk through turnstiles, and then through security gates in order to ensure the safety of all our school’s precious books. Once you’re through, make your way toward the staircase on the left of the middle floor. Head to the right of the stairs, past the sculpture of a man holding ropes and trudging through rocks. Notice his beautifully carved toes.
Walk through the door that takes you on a staircase downstairs. Wrap around the stairs, noticing the mellow yellow walls that surround you. Once you reach the stairs’ end, you will see a fake plastic tree standing oddly in a corner. Grab a leaf off the tree and carry it with you for the rest of your mundane journey.
Make your way out the door and into the lower floor of the library. Walk directly to your right until you reach a wall in the far corner of the level. Walk to your left along this wall of books until you begin to see an odd assortment of film canisters. There, next to the last row of shelves, between the Latin America section and a shelf of gray film cans, is a beanbag; this week’s hidden place.
Set down your things, if you have any, and look through the stacks and stacks of old film reels. Find titles like “Legend of Sunshine Mountain,” “Last of the Red Hot Dragons,” and my personal favorite, “Great Banana Pie.” Let yourself go back into time and imagine when these film reels were the only means of watching movies. Listen for the rhythmic sound of an old projector. Set your mind at ease, and fall into a much needed nap. Or hit the books hard in quiet seclusion.
Be sure to place your plastic leaf on the top of an empty shelf, above a stack of film, where I’ve placed mine. Nostalgic dreams and a beanbag snooze; hidden in plain sight.
Apologies to those of you who looked in vain for the travel log last week. It seems to have been heisted. No worries; a new one has been placed.
As you look through the many titles of film reels, you will come across a stack of two entitled “Hobo and the Runaway.” In between them is the travel log. Be sure to place it back in the same place you find it, in order to assure its safety and presence for the next visitor.
