The Big Goodbye

I think in many ways I should not have gone to Borders today. Aside from the commitment to starving this week to cover my purchases, it was an emotional experience that I did not really need to have today. But Borders, asI said, has been my refuge in the storms of the last 15 years. And I needed a refuge. So I went.

There is no bathroom. The cafe is closed and the store is as picked over as a subdivision wide yard slae at 3 pm on a Sunday. It was painful to find bareness in the shelves. The books that I wanted were gone. The items I mentally tagged for Christmas gits were gone. I managed an immersion German course. 10% of 50.00 isn't much but it helped. And I got Sting's live in Berlin; you know, because I can't be in Borders and not buy something of his. But there were coffee stains on the floor everywhere. Cleared shelves moved off to the side. Nothing was in its place in the CD section. The place was... picked over. There is no other description.

The customers were sombre. The staff kept a stiff upper lip but they too were subdued. It felt like a funeral or a wake... or the day after a frat party. It was a great run but now...

Now what? I have only one other interest for which there is an outlet. But it is no refuge. No haven. It is no where to make friends and swap ideas. While the craft industry is not losing ground, Michaels will continue to exist. But it is a solitary place. I will buy supplies there and go off on my own to create. There is no grand discussion of philosophy or art in those aisles.

I was going to take a camera with me and hopefully show you Carl, best in store voice guy ever. And commemorate the secure feeling of being surrounded by stacks of wisdom. I wish that I had not gone in.... so that the memory of the Summer afternoon sun gleaming off of rows of crisp new book spines would be foremost in my mind. It is a loss on top of other losses that saddens me to the core.

But like a pet that passes this is a minor loss. That is what people will tell me because they are not sensitive to the small things that others love. It isn't that they lack care and compassion. It is that in the grand scheme of their perceptions, losing a pet or a bookstore is not the same as losing a child or a spouse of 75 years. Loss is loss. And every life is differnt in the degrees of importance that somethings achieve.

I am single so the loss of those "se ya around" friends is significant. I haven't my own home so the loss of a refuge is significant. And the wealth of information, stimulation and inspiration can not be compared to anything else. I am a geek. It is akin to losing a leg and being a runner before the age of decent prosthetics.