for the love of god, woman!!!
Yesterday I took my toyota (((echo echo echo))) in to get the windshield replaced. It survived a hail storm sometime before I owned it and the windshield was a cracked disaster. the wildcard I bought the car from recommended a place in s. burl so I went there. The folks at the glass place were like, “YOU AREN’T GOING TO HANG OUT HERE FOR TWO HOURS, ARE YOU?” and I was like, “Nah. I’m gonna wander around.” It is on a road loaded with stores I’ve been intending to visit for a while but hadn’t had the time to, so I decided to hoof it. I love walking in places where things are close but everyone drives to them cause I feel like a big middle finger to the noisy cars blasting by. Also I was thinking, thank goodness all these electric cars are coming, automobiles are freaking noisy.
Among my stops were two bedding stores, a stone countertop place, a place selling airstream trailers, a pet food store selling leashes and goat milk, a paint store, and this thrift store I’ve always wanted to visit. In between stops I was listening to an interview with naomi shihab nye where she talked about the power of poetry, and about this word that describes the spaciousness in poetry: “And a girl, in fact, wrote me a note in Yokohama on the day that I was leaving her school (...) it said, “Well, here in Japan, we have a concept called ‘yutori.’” And it is spaciousness. It’s a kind of living with spaciousness. For example, it’s leaving early enough to get somewhere so that you know you’re going to arrive early, so when you get there, you have time to look around. Or — and then she gave all these different definitions of what yutori was to her.But one of them was — and after you read a poem just knowing you can hold it, you can be in that space of the poem. And it can hold you in its space. And you don’t have to explain it. You don’t have to paraphrase it. You just hold it, and it allows you to see differently. And I just love that. I mean, I think that’s what I’ve been trying to say all these years. I should have studied Japanese. [laughs] Maybe that’s where all our answers are. In Japanese.”
This struck me as the thing that I learned most when I was getting divorced, about giving myself space and time to wander around because there were answers I couldn’t find on my most direct route to singletown. And my favorite thing about my unemployment is also giving myself the gift of this time, trying to rush less and be more present with other people.
I talked to the man in the stone store about his favorite stone to work with, which is soapstone, and about this bench he has on display that his grandfather got out of a barn somewhere and he confessed that like me, he also has particleboard countertops in his kitchen.
I wandered into some airstream trailers on display which were very attractive but smelled like new chemicals, and so did not 100% appeal to me.
And then I finally visited this thrift store I have been intending to visit for some time. Outside there were the BEST vermont shirts I have ever seen, which were bright orange and had a moose on them and looked to be handmade. I got into conversation with the owner about these first, and complimented her on her style. She had a great fluffy dog as well, who trundled in and sniffed me thoroughly. And then things got surreal. We talked about our lives and our degrees and when I mentioned that I had my library and information science degree she started telling me about having to fight with the school librarian in town when her son brought home a book she found intolerable. I sort of reeled internally at how to respond to this affront to freedom of expression without offending her (in part because we were having a good conversation and in part because I felt like being combative would be unlikely to encourage positive discourse) and ended up saying something like, “It’s wild world, right? And there is so much awfulness in it. I think we all want to protect our kids from negative stuff. But I have to say for myself, I’ve sometimes read books about lives and experiences I would NEVER want to have but reading those things has given me an understanding and an empathy for folks/lives/experiences that I would never have had otherwise.”
Then we talked about how we met our partners, she told me about her kids and how she ended up in Vermont (the clinton administration's impact on communities through their policies in shutting down military bases factored into this), and about her husband’s military career and his subsequent call to the ministry. We also talked about our previous relationships with alcoholics and about the power of prayer in finding the best human. As well as the importance of forgiveness.
She also complained that missionaries aren't being allowed into India anymore. There was a skirt I really liked there and a couple of other things but I didn't buy anything. I declined her invitation to church this weekend, and to bible study, but I can honestly say I think we both benefited from the conversation.
Then I went to the paint store to buy some paint the same color as mayonnaise, checked out more beds, and picked up my car (which looks great) and drilled the staff at the glass store about their favorite restaurants. All in all, I have to say it was a good day.
