baby new year
The other day I drove by a dirt pile where my favorite local bookstore once stood. I loved Inkwood Books, an independent bookstore in South Tampa housed in a cute bungalow built in 1923. I’d step through the door feeling lonely. But after perusing enticing cookbooks as well as the staff’s picks for new fiction and my favorite self-help titles, I’d leave uplifted, with a book in hand, and a few off-color greeting cards.
Later, after my son was born, I entered a photo of him in the “Get Caught Reading” contest. The photo of him in my in-law’s kitchen sink taking what we called a “sink tubbie’’, reading The Rainbow Fish with his wrinkled wrists and dimpled hands, won the contest. And we won a $100 gift card!
I’d walk into Inkwood and feel instantly transported and comforted. Books are both an escape and a big ass all-encompassing hug to me. When heartbroken about my mom’s cancer diagnosis, one of the booksellers suggested an achingly beautiful book called, The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs. I inhaled it more than read it finding a truthful and kind companion in her words.
Another day, while feeling stir crazy at home, I went into the bookstore to escape laundry and dishes. While sitting on the floor in the kid’s section, I watched as my youngest pulled almost every book off the shelf. Shoeless and determined, she was having the time of her life, and I was grateful to have a place to sit for a spell in the air conditioning and without those menacing clothes, plates, and 48 cups staring at me. (Don’t worry, I put the books back).
Now that little destructive baby angel girl is turning 10 tomorrow, her oldest sister, 16, in a month, and my son is 19 today! He no longer takes sink tubbies thankfully. But he does still read, also thankfully.
I felt sad when the bookstore closed in 2019 after relocating to a spot that never quite had the same warmth to it. And I felt sad seeing the charming original spot demolished when I drove by a few weeks ago. I hope I’m surprised and that whatever ends up there has character and isn’t a depressing office building. Sorry if I sound curmudgeonly!
I love bookstores and anytime I travel, much to my family’s dismay, I like to spend as much time as possible in them. It’s like soaking up nature when I’m outside. I roam around touching different textures, paying attention to how different colors and smells make me feel.
Two nights ago on Rosh Hashanah, after a tummy full of matzo ball soup, salmon, and brisket, I went to hear one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert speak at Tampa Theater (I LOVE Tampa Theater and I’m grateful it’s staying put!) about her new book, All the Way to The River.
When talking about grief, she said, it’s there to help us, not hurt us. This, I felt deeply. When change happens, and change is always happening, sometimes I dig my heels in and resist it. When feelings arise, big, messy, complicated ones, it’s easy to resist them too, to push them down or try to push them away with some kind of vice or distraction, anything to avoid the discomfort.
But as we learn sometimes the hard way, that doesn’t work or it doesn’t work for long. Our feelings are there to be felt. And there is another way. We can also relax. We can practice and it does take practice, softening and surrendering. She reminded us a few times with the truth that we are not in control. “You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.”
We can’t control anyone else. We can’t control most things so what if we stop trying. The Porsche who took up two parking spaces in a very busy parking lot the other morning? Well that was annoying.
But can I let go? Especially when something doesn’t go the way I want it to? Or someone doesn’t act the way I want them to? Can we take it as it comes? Surrender gently, softy, lovingly? Laugh at ourselves when we notice our clenched fists? No time is greater than Fall, to remind us how beautiful and transformative this experience of letting go can be.
The places and people we love change. So do we. My hair is now frizzy. When did that happen? We can stop fighting everything and everyone all the time or choose at least what to fight for intentionally and what to let go of. It’s not easy. At all. And I think the only way to do it – and I’m no expert – I write these posts because I’m learning as I go-is to acknowledge whatever it is that’s coming up no matter how unpleasant. And rely on each other for support to do this. Because when we do, we find that we, the essential piece of who we are, is still and always will be, here. No one can demolish that miracle.