Tag Archives: enjoying life

Shelving What Matters Most

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Last night, with about a hundred things to do to get ready for tonight’s murder mystery in the bookstore (starts at 7, if you’re in the neighborhood) I wound up culling our online inventory.

You know the drill; it’s a form of avoidance therapy we’ve all practiced, this sudden need to do a job that’s been sitting around for weeks and has nothing to do with the urgent things before you, but just at that moment the planets align and there could be no better thing to do with one’s time than….

…reconcile the printed inventory list of 452 books with the titles on the online shelf. Mostly these books are hard to find for some reason and thus in high demand. The list being very dynamic, it’s a tussle to keep the right books on that shelf. Hard to find cuts both ways.

So I went at it. With my husband one floor below me installing a floor for our new bedroom (took him only eight hours; we’re very proud!) and foster kittens sullying the mystery room with every passing moment, despite baking and cleaning and last minute “how did this get there” tidying to be done, I grasped the list of titles firmly and spent 2 glorious hours playing a game of solitaire with books.

Is the book on the shelf? Fine, mark it off the paper list. Is the book on the list but not the shelf? Search the bookstore section it should be in. Is the book AWOL? Make another list. After all, tomorrow is another day.

When it was over, the bookstore was in chaos. Piles of mis-categorized books on the table. Gaping holes in the online shelf where books were falling over, falling off. Dust from ancient tomes everywhere.

Most satisfying. I cleaned up the debris, then made a half-hearted start at my “to do” list for the murder. As it turned out, things weren’t nearly so awful as I’d supposed. Pick up a dog toy here, straighten a shelf there: twenty minutes, and the place looked good. Screw the baking; we’ll serve ice cream sundaes.

Work expands to fill the time allotted it. If I’d given it two hours, I’d have found two hours’ worth of tidying. But you know, the time spent among the books, happily alphabetizing and culling and imposing a sweet sense of order on a random corner of the universe – well, sometimes it just does a body good to putter. Let the mad world whirl by; the books and I had a grand evening.

How to Be in a New Place

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As Jack and I cope with book launch day, Andrew-the-shopsitter guest blogs about living in new places and making new friends. Take it away, Andrew!

How do I write about Big Stone Gap? I think there’s a temptation to cram it into an existing small-town narrative. Something about nostalgia for times past and simple living:

The local diner feels like a time machine, a place where people still get together and talk over a cup of coffee…

I didn’t expect to find ___________ (iPads, greek yogurt, movie snobs, a good slice of pizza) once my Greyhound pulled away from the island of Manhattan.

Seeing photos of bluegrass and country stars stretching back 40 years on the wall of Maggard Sound is a reminder of the rich cultural traditions of the region…

Community still means something in Big Stone Gap…

None of these things is completely untrue. The Mutual Pharmacy and Diner actually is a great place where people know each other. And yes, my bloodstream has been enriched by their grits and two types of gravy (I know the brown is made on-site, but I still prefer the white). People have been friendly and welcoming, demonstrating the hospitality and the occasional Yank-ribbing I had expected.

But to take any of those stories and make it what Big Stone Gap is about, now that’s just unfair. But I think there is a real lesson to be taken from being dropped into a new place, whether Big Stone Gap or Atlanta. How we experience the identity of a place isn’t so much about a cliche you can drop on an entire populace, but about how we as individuals engage with those around us.

When I moved to Seattle after college I found myself learning the city: its streets, restaurants, bars, and parks. But there were some ways in which I would never know the city like my native roommates. They were of the place and had absorbed a culture that would never be totally mine. Still, there were times when I felt like I had the edge, whether knowing the restaurants in the International District, or the best bars downtown.

My point is not just that I’m a freakin’ genius who is better at living than others (maybe I’ll save that argument for a later post). My un-genius became clear to me when I went back to Columbus, Ohio, where I grew up and lived for 19 years. I’d borrow my Dad’s car and get lost for hours trying to find a sandwich shop I ate at every day in high school. Or I’d go to get Chinese food and realize that the place had closed and I didn’t know where else was good. Or friends who lived in Columbus would tell me to meet them in a certain district (I’m looking at you Victorian Village), and I had never even heard of it.

I never had to engage with Columbus. And while my heart knows it and is of it, I never gave the city the thought it probably deserved, because it was never forced on me. In Seattle (and later New York) every step down an unfamiliar street, every trip on the bus, was entirely new. My engagement with the city had to be a conscious one, or else I’d probably still be wandering around the Central District, lost and hungry.

When I’m walking around Big Stone Gap I am entirely out of my element. So I’m back to needing conscious, constant engagement. Every step, every opportunity to meet someone new or try something different deserves my full attention. Amazing people (Gappers? Stoners? Biggers? Gappees? Gappinites? Gapperois?) have been open to sharing a bit of themselves, but it’s ultimately on us as individuals to grab at any chance we’re given to learn more about our surroundings.

And I think that’s a point worth making. Perhaps with some effort we can even try and see our own communities in the same light. Look at it like an outsider and grab at those chance encounters and friendly offers that we so often pass up. Could I hang out in a diner in Brooklyn and jaw with regulars? Or catch a Celtic concert and swap stories with the musicians? Or drop by the work of someone I’ve only just met, just to see how cool their job is? Probably, yeah. But I wouldn’t. And I didn’t. But I have in Big Stone Gap.