I’m trying something new. It’s called retail. I’ve only ever worked in the service industry and definitely don’t consider myself a salesperson, so we’ll see how it goes.
Brickydella is a curated collection of vintage clothing with some local art and a lotta plants thrown in. The shop owners are old friends of my previous employers at Offbeat—arriving at Offbeat felt like coming home, and this does too. Just a solid comfy sense that I’m right where I need to be. Also, I’m selling my teacup books there. This is the first time I’ve had my books on a shelf in a store. So you can find me putting together outfits, sewing up books at the counter, or earnestly trying to keep all of the plants alive. In a way, it’s a lot of my favorite things / a lot of my job experience in one place. But not coffee.
It’s a treasure trove, to be sure, that I’m still getting to know. I often think about that scene in Under the Tuscan Sun right after Fran impulsively buys her Italian villa and offers advice on buyer’s remorse. If you haven’t seen it, you should, if only because it romanticizes rebuilding your life when you thought your life was over and you were too old to start again. Her advice mostly boils down to 1) move slowly through your new home and let it reveal itself to you and 2) have a space of reprieve in your new home while everything else is being torn down and built back up.
Those are two things I could write about for years, and honestly I have: finding stillness and making a home. Retail allows me more time for stillness, after a lifetime in an industry that depends on an inherent, constant sense of urgency. I think some truths are only revealed in stillness, especially those deep truths you harbor too close to acknowledge. I think going too long without introspection is how you learn to live a lie. I think if you ignore your gut feeling for long enough, it stops talking to you.
I realize I just like when the scenery changes. I like having two different jobs; I like having varied tasks. I maintain a couple shifts/week at a coffee shop, to keep the dread at bay. I still make coffee.
It’s a coffee shop inside of a brewery, and it’s a little grimey but has really beautiful windows at the front. One half of the room is very bright in the morning, and the other half is dim. Like how some days, the kind customers come in and the good music plays on the radio and I get to finish my cortado before anyone comes in; and some days the beer regulars come too early and the mean girl is scheduled and the bartenders didn’t clean up last night. At least half the time, it’s worth it.
Right now, I just want to be in a routine again. I just want to go to work and go home and drink coffee and make art. Trying to settle in, but I get so triggered by a feeling of contentment. I’m always aware of the other shoe. The rug always gets pulled. I am making a list of my favorite things so I don’t forget, so I can read it when I need it, so I can wring it out over thirsty soil when the dry dirt is me. I am writing just to write.
I am writing just to write; I am writing just to write. I let it drip over the dirt. I let the roots sit in the water. I’ll only rot if I stop.
xo, teacup