Hello everyone,
“You don’t need insurance when you have community.”
This is what a friend said to us after our window fund reached its goal. We were griping about the cost of insurance and other embarrassing problems when he reminded us that insurance companies often have names in the spirit of The Co-Operative or Farmers Union. “They often started with farmers pooling together a little emergency fund just in case something went wrong,” he explained. “Now they are massive behemoths.” And though we are not up on our insurance history we took him at his word because he is a lovely person and, well, flattery will get you everywhere with us.
This sense of community continued this past week after talking to a friend who runs a record shop. He was excited about the parking lot parties he’s been holding and mentioned how good it felt to see people and talk about music. WE MISS OUR BOOKSHOP EVENTS, we exclaimed! And a massive sadness overcame all three of us as we remembered how much our shop events cooked before the world caught on fire. Sure, we make a living at this (kind of). But you don’t do this sort of thing unless you love it. And, without a doubt, when we stood behind the counter listening to an author read from their new book or watched Keewatin Dewdney’s Maltese Cross Movement projected on real film in our bookshop nothing really beats it.
We miss all of you.
Our hope is that by some arrested means a pool of communal work/hunger is brewing in all of our little lives ready to blast out at the first sign of safety. We imagine our back parking lot draped in Christmas lights, decked with tables, and scented with flowers from Grow and Bloom, with some up-start Outsider musician banging away on guitar, books falling off tables into everyone’s arms. WE DID IT! And like some alien species falling to the ground in seed form, the blooming imaginations of our quarantined brains can feel free to be smart and ridiculous in the night-time event space that is our beloved, rickety bookshop.
It’s like a damned ship, held together by a crew of indoor kids who know NOTHING about sailing, really, but just NEED TO SAIL. The seas were calm before all of this. But the storm came and damn it we’re going to sail this lovely thing COME WHAT MAY. Perhaps this brings character? Perhaps it defines depth of heart? Who the fuck knows?
We do know this. We miss you. We are keeping the space ready. And the MOMENT it’s safe to elect some beautiful weirdo to sing, or read, or project, or play, or WHATEVER for you, and us, the audience, we’re gunna make a stage for them like it’s a feast fucking Ostara.
Love you all,
Jason and Vanessa
