Anne Lamott

When I worked at the Green Mountain Inn I became a little obsessed with the Stowe Public Library. There are really only a handful of things that make Stowe at all worthwhile...the dump, Amy's cafe, the quiet trail.... and the public library. It's a cool enough place that kids, high school kids, file off the school bus after school to hang out there. I know that I didn't hang out at the public library when I was high school.

It's two blocks from the inn and during slow times, which was most of the time, I'd spend hours in there. It was through that library that I discovered the author Anne Lamott. After I read every book of hers that they had on their shelves, I began getting others through their inter-library loan program. I left my job at the inn at the end of June to buy the coffee shop and by that time there was only one book of Anne Lamott's that I hadn't yet read. It was the first book she ever published... Joe Jones...and it's been nearly a year that I've wondered about it.

She's written some great non-fiction... a book called Operating Instructions about her first year as a mother. She glorifies nothing and made me laugh till I almost peed my pants. She also wrote a book called Bird by Bird ~ Instructions on Writing and Life. Loving to write as much I do, this book became a kind of bible for me. She's also written some non-fiction stuff on faith and how much George Bush sucks and how life is still a beautiful thing even when her good friends die of cancer and the planet is in such a state of disarray.

Her fiction is full of sweet, solid friendships and candid detail on the day to day motions of simply being. She moves from gorgeous prose to the simple mundane in one graceful swoop... but seems to take your breath away while she does it.

On my way to the airport, I stopped at one of the box store bookstores, much as it goes against my better judgement. I just didn't have the time to go into Burlington to patronize the Crow Used Bookstore. Five minutes into the experience of perusing the new fiction shelves, I started to get riddled with serious anxiety. Too many options. Too little time. Way too much room for potential disappointment. I had two long days of air travel and it had to be a book worthy of distracting me from uncomfortable seats and turbulence.

After a solid ten minutes of that anxiety, I was reminded of Anne Lamott and that one, last book that I had yet to read. I hopped my little behind on the escalator and found the L aisle of the fiction section and, lo and behold, there was Joe Jones.

Call it fateful divinity, but it turns out that Anne Lamott's very first novel, the only book I had yet to read, was centered around a small town cafe and the close woven dynamics of the owners/workers/patrons. It was like I took the very best elements of my new barista coffee shop owner life with me on that trip. It was like she put it all to music. Made poetry out of it. I came home, re-opened the shop and started to wonder who our Eva is and who our Willie is.... started to see each of my regulars as characters. Started to think of how this is all incredibly tied together... this little town, this little coffee shop community... the history, the stories, the characters.

I've been considering asking some of them if I could have the freedom to write little blips on them here and there... especially Old Bob, who I've mentioned before on this blog. He's got a pretty wild life story and even though he repeats it at least four times a week to whoever sidles up to him at the bar...I figured I should ask anyway. Of course, he had no idea what a blog is and didn't mind at all if I tell his stories. Which I'll do.... but not now. Right now I have to go take pictures of my brother's beautiful photography now hanging in the shop and then I have to post them here so he can see them!

The Repaint

So, we did repaint the shop. Two rooms, anyway. I had one friend lined up for two solid days of work and he came in on Monday, toward the end of the business day, while I was flying back from California, to spackle the walls and clear out as much furniture as he could.

When I showed up on Tuesday morning, absolutely sleep deprived at this point, and sad and weepy from losing Gretchen, I came in to a polka dotted coffee shop. Papaya red walls covered in white splotches. A few customers walked into the shop that morning, oblivious to the fact that it had no furniture and looked like a bad case of chicken pox. Some even made it as far as the counter, where they found me standing on furniture, packing plates. Some would even go so far as to order something…. Like, hello? We’re closed. I ended up having to close one of the interior doors, tape newspaper over the glass and post a second sign…. ...letting them know that they had entirely missed the first sign. It’s hard to believe folks in this town functioned without coffee for three whole days.

What was great, though, was the friends/patrons who would stop by and visit and offer an hour or two of their time. Just two hours into this project and I was well aware that we would really have to hustle to make this happen in three days, so every minute volunteered was graciously accepted. I offered up my baked goods and as much tea and coffee as folks could tolerate. We kept the stereo on Itunes Shuffle and had a great time.

Tara came out and painted the door purple. It is now Tara’s purple door.

Luke came.The wooden rectangle that the Torani syrups live on was taken down and Luke painted it red, to match the Chili Pepper wall. It’s now Luke’s red box. The ceiling, which was a shade of sky blue, was taken back to a bright white by Brian. Brian, who came out and showed us his best Grease Lightning. It’s now Brian’s white ceiling.

Manka came out and cut some edges for us. Jared was the foreman of the group. Holly came over on the last day, my weekday champion employee, and helped me put it all back together. We were able to take a break mid-day and walk across the street and eat lunch and drink a beer… something that we just can’t do any other day.

So we transformed the shop room from a jaundice yellow/chalk dust torture monotone color to a few different colors… all warm and cozy and welcoming. One full wall is now Chili Pepper… a deep red. The windows are painted a bright white and new wooden shelves were hung with black cast iron mounts. The wooden bar, old fashioned metal cupboards behind the counter, and the big metal door were all painted Eggplant. The rest of the walls were painted Café Royal… which is a perfect shade of creamy coffee…. Coffee the color of a brown paper bag. I like that.
Alot.

The middle room, which is a bright wanes cotting along the bottom half, was transformed from a papaya red to an Audubon Russet… a nice rusty, reddish brown. Everything is perfect. It feels like mine.

Now that I’m back to regular hours, I’ve been writing up a new breakfast menu and figuring out how to make it happen with the limited space I’ve got. I’ve figured out that I can scramble an egg with the steam wand on the espresso machine and I can make French toast on the Panini grill. If I can stay creative like this, I may be able to maintain my principles and not have to buy a microwave for the place. I just justify radiating people’s food.

I meet with the rep from my food distributor on Friday so he can help translate the thick catalogue of food options and hopefully….soon soon soon…. I’ll be the new breakfast joint in town. The breakfast joint with the purdy colored walls.

The World Don't Stop for Little Black Dogs

We lost a four legged member of our family last week. Gretchen would have been fifteen years old this March. Bill drove to his home state of Maryland, back in ‘93, to pick her from the litter one month after moving into his first apartment. She has watched him grow up. She’s seen this whole family through a whole lot of growing up. When I met Bill in Lancaster, Pa, Gretchen was two years old and still a ridiculously high strung black lab. It didn’t help that they were living in a third floor apartment on the main route to the hospital and the sirens would tweek the poor pup out at least a dozen times a day. I used to go visit and would have to keep my limbs, all of them, on whatever piece of furniture I was sitting on. Otherwise, she would be chewing on them. When Bill and Gretchen followed to me to Vermont the following year, one of the most amazing things about that transition was watching Gretchen grow into her instincts. She had fields and fields to run through, deer to chase, streams to romp in. She mellowed out, became less jealous of me getting shotgun in the VW bus, and became a great Nana to Ella when she was born. When Ella was six months old, she had seven pups, one of which now live with my folks in Pennsylvania.

When Bill and Ella picked me up from the airport last week, Bill told me on the drive home that Gretchen had been sick all day. By the time we got home that night, her breathing was labored and she wasn’t able to get off of her new doggie bed. I don’t know if Bill was ready to admit it, but it was clear to me that our old girl was getting ready to move on to brighter places. We went to bed around midnight and took turns checking on her through the night. Bill woke me at 4am… she wasn’t doing well at all. We laid cushions down on the kitchen floor, dragged blankets from the hall closet and laid down on either side of her, stroking her, letting her know it was okay to go. Our other dog, Woody, lay down next to me, his neck draped over mine, watching Gretchen. At one point, even the cat came to lay down next to her. We were her little cheering squad, trying to encourage this ever faithful dog to let go and move on and be at peace.

When dawn came, she did.

We eventually woke Ella and she came down to say her goodbyes before Bill took her to the vet’s office to be cremated. We’ll bury her ashes on the hill once the ground thaws… create a little stone to mark the place.

I had already posted signs that the shop would be closed the rest of that week for repainting so it was a matter of pulling ourselves up by the seat of our pants and just dealing with the day. We gave Ella the option of staying home from school that day but she led by splendid example and put herself to the task of carrying on gracefully.

I drove into Johnson, unlocked the shop and put myself to work putting away dishes, breaking down shelves and laying plastic over counters. Bill took the day off from his regular work of renovating old houses and came in to work with us, puffy eyed and quiet… Charlie Brown having lost his Snoopy.

The first thing he said after walking through the door… “The world don’t stop for anything… not even little black dogs.”

Wild West

It’s been almost two weeks since I left for California but the novelty of the trip is still fresh. It’s kind of like the riding of fumes into the gas station after a long day on my feet. I didn’t bring my computer on the trip with me. At the very last moment, I decided to leave it home and packed my moleskin notebook in my carry on. These days, I rarely write with a pen… I pride myself on superb typing skills…my fingers on the keys can almost keep up with the thoughts in my head….so I didn’t think I’d even write all that much. But there is something so unbelievably stimulating about airports and window seats and hazardous waste explosions on the highway (I’ll get to that) that I ended up writing way more than I thought and I’m so glad that I did because now, after two weeks of being back to the grind… the trip itself and all those sweet details are starting to drift out to horizon on the rickety raft of bad memory.

Below are some blips from the trip…


The Way There…..

I sat in seat 17D on the first flight from Burlington to Chicago. It was the economy sedan
of airplanes… which means that 17D, being the last row of seats, was the loudest, bumpiest and most brutal.
I made it to O’Hare without hurling and even made my connecting flight without a hitch. I refused
to break a twenty for a pack of gum.

I love flying. I love packing suitcases, love taking off, love all the monopoly houses below. Those little
boxes make me think of the Malveena Reynolds folk song:
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
And they’re all just little boxes
And they all look just the same.”
Pete Seeger said that Malveena Reynolds wrote a song every morning before drinking
her morning coffee.

Every weekday morning I wake Ella at 7am. She and I slumber into the bathroom and
sit in front of the funny little electric heater that’s plumbed into the wall. We sit for a few
minutes, waking up, before we take on the challenge of dressing and
brushing our hair. This morning, she wanted a play-by-play of my travels.
“Where will you be when I’m in math class?”
“Where will you be when I’m in lunch?”
“When will you call us?”
I told her my plane would be leaving the ground in Burlington while she was eating lunch. As I sat in that back row, my head exploding and gut vibrating, I thought of her sitting at those long funny elementary school lunch tables… the kind that fold in half and have those funny little plastic circles for tiny little elementary school sized behinds. I hoped she wasn’t eating some god forsaken school lunch like Salisbury steaks or chicken patties. While waiting for my connecting flight in Chicago, I got a voicemail from Ella. She had just gotten home from school and told me that she thought of me at lunch time and that she loved me and missed me already. It was like a sweet, protective traveling talisman that I wore for the rest of my travels.

In Chicago, on the ground, the skies were gray and it was raining. Up here, above the clouds, the sun is strong and bright. Up here I’m reminded that somewhere between the storm and the sun lies clear skies. Somewhere. I think I could use that reminder on a daily basis. I imagine this white plateau up here must resemble the Arctic-looking like something between meringue and soft cotton-all sun struck and subtle shadow. Off in the distance, the clouds rise up like compressed glaciers.

I’ve determined on this flight that when traveling, I should always be the one assigned to a window seat. Chances are, I will, more than anyone else on any given flight, see way more magic out that window. I’m thirty three, with crows feet and bad knees, and you plop me in a window seat on a plane, thousands of feet above sea level, and I’m instantly transformed into a gawking, dreaming, star-struck child. I put my book down to take a look outside and my chest seizes with the absolute beauty of what I found out later to be the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I think I’m going to cry because they are just so fucking beautiful. How can anyone on this place actually be watching Ugly Betty with that mountain range just outside?


There….

When Brandi called me with directions from the airport to her house, I deliberately waited to post the adjectives she used to describe the conditions of that drive. Words like curvy, careful, dangerous, possible mudslides, landslides, boulders in the road, steep drop-offs, no guard-rails…. The list went on and on. My mother reads this blog and I knew she’d be getting little enough sleep with one of her children traveling in a plane across the country. I’d try and let her believe that my perils ended once the plane landed.
But while I waited for my baggage on the conveyer belt, Brandi rang my cell phone to tell me that the two hour mountain pass through the Trinity and Shasta State Forest was expecting “weather” that night. The reason for her call was to let me know that when the mountain passes get “weather”, police block off the roads and only allow 4WD vehicles or 2WD vehicles with chains. If you don’t have chains they turn you around to find some.
So, I upgraded my rental car to a Jeep Liberty.
I found it terribly ironic that the last time I was in Arcada, California, I was hitchhiking and practically barefoot with only a backpack and now, in this clean, green town, a singular person, there I was driving an f’n SUV. We called it the “I’m an asshole” ride all weekend.

So, I arrived in Sacramento at 6pm (9pm my biological time) and proceeded to drive five hours north. I drove through towns with names like Esposito, Yuba and Yolo. Gone were the New Englandy town names of Hyde Park and York and Woodstock. There was one rural highway named Improved Order of the Red Man. What?

I arrived at Brandi’s at midnight (3am my biological time) and we drank some wine and caught up on life while sitting on the rug in front of her woodstove. We crawled into bed after a couple of hours and then giggled like little girls till 3:30am (6:30 my biological time). The weekend proceeded like that. Late nights, wine, beautiful misty California mountain mornings… and me…. Trying to figure out how the hell I was awake and what the hell time I was really operating on.

We spent a day driving along the coast…visiting Patrick’s Point and the South Fork trail in the Redwood State Forest. I got up close and personal with a herd of two dozen elk. I collected leaves and berries and took pictures. I kept stopping my “I’m an asshole” ride on the side of the road, like a good little tourist, so I could hop out and stand there, camera over my shoulder, awe struck, soaking it all in… the magnitude and the beauty.

After our day of soaking in the elements, we played dress up and hit the town. We shopped, shopped some more, got me a bit of a haircut and then ate some California sushi. We finished the night with a killer band at a friendly bar and danced till 3am (6am my biological time?)

We woke after a late night of organic pinot and hemp ale (it was Humbolt County after all) to Brandi sprinting to the john. With the possible exception of shopping, Brandi does nothing to excess, so it would have been surprising for her to be strung with a hangover… especially since she drank less than me.
Twenty minutes after her thirty minute stretch on the john, she gets a call from Chris, her daughter Aida’s daddy, that Aida has been barfing all night with a fever.

So Brandi’s 30th birthday went from a rolling boil of a weekend to a simmering and slow and sickly Sunday afternoon of puking and shitting and forcing down tea.

Unless it’s Ella, I don’t usually make a habit of cuddling and kissing and loving on sickly kids but it was my only day to spend with Aida, who is my most adorable and loving little goddaughter. She calls me Aunty Meg and firmly believes that I am a true fairy god mother. I totally encourage this belief. If I had little pointy ears, I’d wear them.
And so we spent the day reading books, playing with the Rosie the Rivetor action figure I brought her, rubbing her back and sharing her germs. We wore newspaper made party hats for Brandi’s birthday and walked around the house quietly while one or the other of them slept. Chris made some food for those of us with appetites and he took me for a lovely walk down to the Trinity River. I took a one hour nap before I hit the road at 11pm for my five hour drive south to Sacramento. Next time, I think I’ll plan the time of my flight a little better.


The Way Home…

The trip from Arcata to Sacramento is split into two segments. The first half is mountain passes and the second half is straight interstate. It’s easy enough to stay awake while driving over mountain passes. It’s either stay awake or hurl yourself over a cliff. The options are sobering enough.
Just a few minutes on the highway though, and still two and a half hours till Sacramento, I slowed down to a she-cop lighting flares and stopping traffic. Further down the interstate an 18-wheeler full of hazardous waste exploded and all traffic south of that point was absolutely prohibited.

“Like how prohibited?”
“Like, this-is-for-your-health-prohibited.”
“Are there alternate routes I can take to make my flight in Sacramento?”
“NO. ALL TRAFFIC SOUTH OF THIS POINT ON ALL ROADS IS PROHIBITED. You can only turn around and head north.”
“Any idea how long the road’s gonna be closed?”
“HOURS, at least.”

I found a small truck stop two exits north and called the airline from my car. There were no later flights that day. My only option would be to fly out the following day with a fee of almost two hundred dollars. So I cried for about thirty seconds in my pimpin “I’m an asshole” ride and felt sorry for myself because I was stuck in this jam and it was almost 3am and I couldn’t even call anyone for sympathy.

Then I put on my big-girl pants and went in to hang out with the truckers. I borrowed a more detailed map from the guy at the counter, determined to find an alternate route, and got a hold of a number to call for road conditions. The only other route south was still open and while I was doing this leg work, a female trucker came in and joined me. We met a local who was in buying beer and seemed excited to get in on all the commotion and commraderie. He was able to give us back woods directions through farms and over train tracks and flooded bridges… about forty minutes around absolutely nothing…to find this alternate route, or, as it turned out, hop back on the interstate. So, I followed her PG&E flatbed truck and was ever grateful to have found a female to do this with. I’ve met enough truckers in my travels to know that I wouldn’t have followed a man through these back roads. We got spit out back on Route 5 and it was south enough of the explosion. I don’t know how close we actually came to it. I’ll have to check occasionally to make sure that I’m not sprouting any strange growths.

And back at the airport….. the flight was a flight. Not quite as novel now that I knew what lay ahead. I made a friend on my first flight and spent some quality time at O’Hare. On the connecting flight to Burlington I ended up again with the lame, bumpy back seat but this time I had the whole row to myself so after finishing my book, I spread out and pretended to sleep.

Flying over Burlington, the city was all lit up among the surrounding darkness, it’s center thick and concentrated in orange light and then thinning out at the edges… like veins. All the orange light looked like crevices in the earth that had been filled in with fiery lava….like that last scene in Mordor in Lord of the Rings…..with Frodo and Samwise, before the eagle butterfly creature comes to airlift them from imminent death.

I was home. And after a long trip I felt a little like Frodo and Samwise in that last scene. I was eager to be dropped down on my memory foam mattress pad and curl in under my down comforter and get some real sleep.

Turns out, that wasn’t really going to happen. But that’s the next post.

Have Faith

Oh Faithful Blog Readers

.....all four of you.....

I haven't given up on this blog. Please don't you give up, either. Each day goes by and I lay in bed at night thinking that another day's gone by without posting. I'm just so freakin busy. But I have pages and pages written about my amazing trip to California and I can't wait to get the stuff on here. I returned from the west coast, got a spotty three hours of sleep and then spent the following three days repainting the shop...making it bee u tifuuul. I'll post pics, along with stories of the process. So much to write.... so little time. Keep checking in. I'll get to it as soon as I can!

California

The only time I visited the West Coast I traveled by thumb.

I arrived in northern Oregon and took a bus through the night to Ashland. That would be the only public transportation I opted for on that trip. I arrived early in the morning and ended up sleeping on a couch listening to a Moroccan orchestra while my friend Jocelyn let her artist friend mold a plaster casting over her chest. I spent a few days there eating ripe avocados on seedy baguettes, riding a bicycle and sitting under waterfalls in the towns little park. Joc had a few days of work to finish up before she and I could do our traveling together so I figured I'd travel north to Eugene for a few days to visit some hometown friends while I waited. I found a sweet Hungarian girl at the local co-op in Ashland who didn't want to hitchhike alone either, so she and I gathered our gear and headed for the exit ramp together. In the back of the pickup, she took my hands and said a short prayer for safety in her native tongue.

After a few days in Eugene, I met back up with Jocelyn and we started our journey down the Pacific coast...eventually landing in San Francisco.... where we were convinced we could find Harrison Ford and convince him to take us to dinner and buy us pretty things. We walked from Mission Street to Chinatown, found some great second hand shops, Joc shaved her head in the upscale women's bathroom of the downtown Macy's department store.... but we never found Indiana Jones.

A few weeks ago, my good friend's very amicable ex called me to propose flying me out there for her 30th birthday....a surprise (until last night... which is why I can now write about it on this blog!)

You just don't say no to a free trip to northern California. I'd close the shop if I couldn't get the shifts covered. It's just that simple.

So, I leave on the 10th of January, landing in Sacramento around 5pm. From there, I'll drive some rental sedan five hours north to Windy Creek, California and smother Brandi with birthday love.