Two roads converge

Over the past few days, two things came together, but how will I know if they would also come together for you? Perhaps a way to begin is to explain I picked up a book from the library, and I attended a county health board meeting. The book is Maryanne Wolf‘s Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. So many ideas to think about and enjoy in reading this volume which barely holds two hundred pages. It is engagingly dense with ideas and sources that expand in so many directions I hardly know how to hold it all in my head. Half way through, I decided I wanted to start again, at the beginning, and perhaps convince a friend or two, or maybe our local book club to give it a try so there is someone(s) to discuss this book with me.

The same day I picked the book up from the library, I went to the monthly county health board meeting. In a rural county in northwest Montana, it’s a board composed of seven community volunteers who serve “to prevent disease and illness, ensure a healthy environment and promote healthy choices by setting county-wide policies to protect the health of county residents.” One might think that although this board had been sorely tested with Covid, that in general the board would meet monthly to make decisions on air quality, animal control and solid waste disposal. And yes, these topics are on their list of responsibilities but Covid and other issues over the last three or four years forced the board to deal with politicized topics such as vaccines, masks and quarantines.

Do you attend public health board meetings? As I haven’t been to health board meetings in other places, I don’t know if the one here is typical. At last evening’s meeting, there were thirtysome people attending to give public comment on whether the county should have a pandemic influenza plan and if so, what details that plan would contain (a note that during the meeting the terms influenza and Covid were often used interchangeably by some people). Most of the people on the public side of the table strongly voiced their opinion that we didn’t need a pandemic plan and if there was a plan that contained anything about vaccines or quarantines that they, the people speaking at that time, would not comply. Terms like freedom, civil disobedience, and Constitutional rights were voiced often and loudly. It was the first time I heard the word bio-weapon used to describe a vaccine. It was the first time I understood there were people in my community who saw the county health board as a threat to personal freedoms.

In her book, Wolf describes the process for learning to read. No doubt you’ll agree reading is a very special skill. It is a skill according to Wolf and others in the field, that we have to learn. Reading deeply as Wolf puts it, does all sorts of amazing things to our brain and its development. It is a skill that we can learn, use, and hopefully strengthen over time. Unfortunately it seems from studies that Wolf refers to as well as research done by Sherry Turkle, that the digital age while giving us many useful things, also changes things about who we are. People read less and differently, not only fewer books, but reading less in depth because news, messages, emails, and such are on our screen in shorter snatches of words. Complex ideas, beautiful language and critical thinking seem to be slipping away.

Wolf wrote, “When language and thought atrophy, when complexity wanes and everything becomes more and more the same, we run great risks in society politic – whether from the extremists in a religion or a political organization or, less obviously, from advertisers. Whether cruelly enforced or subtly reinenforced, homogenization in groups, societies, or languages can lead to the elimination of whatever is different or ‘other.’ The protection of diversity within human society is a principle that was embodied in our Constitution and long before that in our genetic cerebrodiversity. As described by geneticists, futurists, and most recently Toni Morrison in her book The Origin of Others, diversity enhances the advancement of our species’ development, the quality of our life on our connected planet, and even our survival.”

As a bookstore owner, I encourage people to read. Reading books and newspapers gives and requires more from me than surfing the Internet. Often I find myself discussing what I read, thinking about the content, the ideas not just in the nanosecond of reading them but throughout the day, the week. And reading Wolf’s book made me examine my responses during that health board meeting, and of others at that meeting. I did learn things listening to those opposed to the pandemic plan. I also experienced a situation that lacked empathy – in how some individuals interrupted the meeting, how one person actually voiced he did not feel respected by board members, how at times I felt an inner smirk at something said. With very real differences and divides evident in Helena, MT and Washington, DC, at the health board meeting and at a dinner party, don’t we need a modicum of respect, a willingness to listen? Or are these evaporating like people reading books? And how do we act empathically when the current divisions feel so daunting?

Maryanne Wolf: Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World

Sherry Turkle: Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

Sherry Turkle: The Empathy Diaries

Interview with Sherry Turkle

Toni Morrsion: The Origin of Others

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Inspiration

In the traveling bookstore business as well as in my personal life, I search for that ever elusive balance. What combination makes things work well? On the very first transcontinental bookstore trip from Montana to the Brooklyn Book Festival in New York in 2016, we made the trip across in four long days thinking speed was the answer. Obviously it wasn’t and we arrived exhausted and uninspired. Was staring at a highway eight to ten hours a day really what a traveling bookstore was all about? No! Following trips were much better planned with numerous bookselling stops to refresh and remind one that a bookstore isn’t about speed, but about engaging with people. Now planned cross-country trips usually take two weeks one way with stops in interesting places to talk books.

On a recent trip (without the bookstore) to visit friends in Central Europe, I was inspired by conversations, art exhibits, theater performances, and concerts. And it was a delight to take in urban offerings while in an environment where the majority of people practiced good public health wearing masks, showing proof of vaccination to go into places like restaurants and theaters, and offering easily available Covid testing.

But as with all holidays, my time ended there and I came back to my rural Montana community. Yes, of course there are people here to discuss things with, and this week I help a friend hang a lovely exhibit of woodblock prints she did of jazz musicians. At the end of the month, a local nonprofit brings in a wonderful concert (Bridge & Wolak). But it feels different. There isn’t the spark of a different culture, listening to music in a hall built in the 1870s, walking through a carefully curated exhibit that introduces me to new artists. Which means figuring out what does work to maintain inspiration. I know taking the bookstore cross-country requires time (not speed). And hopefully I can identify where inspiration comes from at home.

Inspiring bookstore discovered: Dlouhá Punčocha

Inspiring performance: Circa

Inspiring luthier: Red Bird Instruments

Inspiring inflight film: Soul

Coerced

Recently, the word coerced seems to weave through many conversations. As in, “I don’t want to be coerced.” People say they don’t want to be coerced to get a vaccine. They don’t want to be coerced to wear a mask when inside public spaces. They don’t want to be coerced to take a test to see if they are ill. I try to put this in context as I travel. While in the tourist mode, I read an article about the alarming escalation of violence on planes, people’s response to not wanting to be coerced to wear masks. The Atlantic recently did an article, “What’s Really Behind Global Vaccine Hesitancy.” It was disheartening to realize the vaccination rate in my northwest Montana county is equivalent to the rate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I want people in both places to be healthy. Is this really too much to ask?

All sorts of reasons are given for refusals, or to explain what coercion means in the time of Covid. Distrust of medical science, distrust of governments. Someone posted on social media, “The letter ‘i’ is not in the word team, but is in the word independence.” It is a challenge to understand individuals making choices for themselves, when they don’t see the need to make choices within the context of their community.

It feels like an onion with more layers than I can possibly manage (I so admire Heather Cox Richardson), because there is also the political context. I noticed myself breathing easier in Berlin where Covid testing was available and free in many places, and proof of vaccines as well as negative test results were required to go into theaters and museums. Visiting friends in the Czech Republic, I hear that yes, restaurants ask to see proof but it is easy to provide false proof that allows you in. And reading the news, I follow the controversy where a legislator in the US proposed unvaccinated patients pay their own hospital bills – which is a rabbit hole we don’t need to go down. At the same time, I want hospital beds to be available for people with heart attacks or appendicitis, broken hips or C-sections. I don’t want healthcare providers to be exhausted.

It isn’t easy. Not for me (traveling with valid proof of vaccine), nor for those deciding not to get vaccinated, and certainly not for those who don’t have access to vaccines. The other day I saw an exhibit at the Moravian Gallery in Brno. The installation, “Demon of Growth” by Kristof Kintera , captures this time. All sorts of balls from golf balls to beach balls, Christmas balls to children’s balls, some beat up, some shiny. All connected. If only.

“Be Kind: You Can Make the World a Happier Place” Naomi Shulman (2019)

“Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued” Petr Sis (2021)

“The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries” Topher Payne (2020)

Boundaries

Canada-US border at Roosville, MT

There seem to be more difficulties dealing with boundaries, although I suppose there have been difficulties for as long as there have been people drawing lines in the sand. Or when someone made a decision about who could use that cave, or hunt in that forest, or fish in that river. When the traveling bookstore isn’t on the road, it’s parked seven miles from the Canadian border. Other than showing the right papers, it was an easy place to visit – going up to Fernie for the wonderful independent bookstore there or on longer adventures to Edmonton (and the wonderful Alhambra Books). But since last March the Canada-US border has been closed for these sorts of trips. The boundary is quite visible in our valley especially in winter with that snowy line stretching from one mountain to another. Close but closed.

Even on this side of the border though, there are struggles with boundaries. Who wears a face mask? Who doesn’t? Why is that person standing so close to me while waiting in line at the post office? Last summer for the first time since opening my traveling bookstore, customers went into my bookstore wearing sidearms. There are my boundaries. Personally I don’t like people wearing guns into my quite small bookstore. I do want people in my community to wear face masks and take other precautions in public during a pandemic. But these are challenges because unlike the border visible across the mountains, I need to establish my own boundaries and decide how to apply them in my sphere. This becomes more complex with seemingly arbitrary boundaries the current Montana legislature and governor are changing at an alarming rate. Can transgender youth play sports? Can children who aren’t vaccinated attend public schools? And yes, people have the right to wear their guns anywhere. And now there are no public health mandates concerning masks or public gatherings from the state government. It is an overwhelming time with frantic urgency to write my representatives in Helena, trying to get them to be sensible about those of us who live in this state, all of us who live in the state. Forcing us to think seriously about our boundaries.

I have the traveling bookstore and plan to set it up in Montana this summer. I hope to take it to other states by Fall. Now I read books – some recommended, some left on my doorstep as a donation, some discovered at the local library. These current times make me aware of books dealing with boundaries – The Women in the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, True North by Jim Harrison, and Savage Inequalities: Children in American Schools by Jonathan Kozol.

Quilting words

It is a slow season for a traveling bookstore in northwest Montana. The snow is starting to settle in and the pandemic has settled heavily in these parts as well. So the bookstore is parked. Occasionally locals stop by and I put a bag of books together for them. It is a very good season to be reading.

Besides my own reading, there is also quilting. Some years back, I began going to a group that meets every Friday to hand quilt in an old schoolhouse. Their efforts bring in funds to support the local museum. Not a person who sews by nature, I mostly wanted to be with these women who knew the history of the valley and who lead by example. They told me I needed to quilt if I was going to hang with them on Fridays so gradually I learned how to make small(ish) stitches, how to attach quilt layers to a frame.

stretching back of quilt on frame

This year in an attempt to make the physical and mental adjustments to Covid, I began creating three quilts. For me, quilting is collaboration. There really isn’t any way to imagine doing it alone. I asked people for fabric, I asked for gloves – as the one quilt features gloves and how our sense of touching others changed during these times. For another quilt, I wanted faces so a friend, Shirley Jacobs, began helping me produce wood block portraits of twenty individuals who passed away over the last six months. Another friend who is a remarkable quilter helped us piece the portrait quilt together. And this week, the women began the process of putting it on the frame to quilt.

Basting

Thinking about this and the wonderful children’s books available about quilts, I decided to put together a list just in case you need ideas for holiday shopping. Of course, you can order any of these from independent bookstores.

The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

Quiltmaker’s Gift by J. Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken

Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson

Quilt Story by Tony Johnson and Tomie de Paola

Quilts of Gee’s Bend by Susan Goldman Rubin

Stitches

To sew is to pray. Men don’t understand this. They see the whole but they don’t see the stitches. They don’t see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman’s eye can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer. from Louise Erdrich’s Four Souls. HarperCollins, 2004

Yes, it is summer so I read. And I take the traveling bookstore around to events in northwest Montana where mostly I set up at farmers markets. When not reading or doing the traveling bookstore business, I work on a quilt these days. I am not a very experienced quilter so it feels a bit odd and definitely awkward. It could be called an art quilt although that seems pretentious. It will be a quilt that can cover someone’s bed, can be wrapped around you on a chilly evening as you read. It is made from fabric and gloves people gave me. I am trying to get the stitching right.

It made sense at that beginning to call it a pandemic quilt. That doesn’t capture it all now as I sew. Initially the idea came from gloves we wore to keep ourselves and our communities healthy, and also the stark physical isolation as many people stopped hugging, stopped shaking hands. Yet circumstances unfolded – or became more vivid. At the beginning it was about a virus but expanded into a lack of leadership and into Black Lives Matter and then older women linking arms to protect protestors. My neighbor across the street put a “Faith Over Fear” sign in her front yard. A thirty-year-old Congresswoman gave a speech that spoke to power. Many foreign borders are now closed to Americans.

I sew a quilt. I make books available to people. I hope for the best, but know we each must contribute to make that happen.

Summer reads

Summer is a truly awesome time to read. Whether you are in a hammock, or at the beach, inside with a fan blowing to keep you cool, or sitting in a camp chair in the mountains, reading in summer has its own special magic. Which means I certainly read more, and I notice my customers seem hungrier for books. A man stopped by my house the other morning, apologized for the inconvenience but wondered if he could go into the bookstore. With the hot weather and sheltering in place, he was going through multiple books each week. He desperately needed more. Of course, I opened up the bookstore and let him browse. Of course, I want any reader to have sufficient reading material. Especially in summer.

Recently the bookstore set up at a new venue, although still in Lincoln County, Montana because it doesn’t feel like the right time to be traveling in this country. I inquired the week before about setting up at the Libby farmers market. Not only did they welcome the idea of a traveling bookstore, but they assured me the market had a mandatory face mask policy. That’s what sold me. I was ready to drive the hour and a half each way to participate. Not only did the market managers require all vendors to wear masks, but they politely requested all customers to wear masks as well. They even had disposable ones to give to anyone who might come to the market without their own.

Libby is about seventy miles from Eureka, a drive along beautiful Lake Koocanusa. Seventy miles mostly without radio reception and the bookstore is of a vintage that doesn’t have a CD player or Bluetooth. A good amount of time to drive appreciating the beauty of place, and thinking about things. Arrived in Libby early enough to have lunch in a friend’s shady backyard before going to the farmers market to set up. It was a delicious lunch, served with a reminder from my friend to focus on positive things.

It is a rough time politically in so many ways. But there I was at a farmers market with interesting vendors and customers to talk with, children excited to buy books, market managers who graciously enforced the state mandate for face masks, and I got to experience it all with a traveling bookstore. I bought delicious pastries from the Gracious Table booth. I met two women who were working for Census 2020 who had fascinating stories to tell me. I marveled at the efforts of Hoot Owl Farm, not only selling lovely produce but keeping their long line of customers well spaced.

People engaged in conversations. People shared ideas. People were willing to wear face masks on a hot afternoon. There were many positive things that day to refresh me for the drive back home.

Bookstore quandaries

When individuals remark how much they would enjoy owning a bookstore, I wonder if they have any idea the number of quandaries a bookstore owner must constantly mull over. Of course there is the question of what sort of books to carry. Should it be used or new or some combination? But then which titles? Are you selecting titles that will be popular with any customer who walks thru the door, or are you selecting titles you believe are really good books – reads that improve the world somehow with ideas or the story or the style of writing? Or finding some middle ground?

With a traveling bookstore, there are also questions about where to set up. Farmers markets, county fairs and music festivals might seem to be easy choices. But what about setting up in the parking lot of bars or fast food joints? Is it useful to open the wonderful world of books to anyone and everyone, anywhere regardless? Or should the bookstore be more selective – similar to choosing non-GMO foods?

Of course, that is a whole other rabbit hole to go down when starting to consider what is healthy. Does it even make sense to drive around the country selling books? On the one hand, this particular bookstore gets reasonably good mileage and uses solar to power the store’s lights. But can that begin to justify using petroleum products to peddle books?

The current pandemic raises other questions about customers’ safety. Is it possible to take enough precautions wiping off the grab bar, washing hands frequently, even making free face masks available? I begin this traveling bookstore season without any long trips planned for the summer, keeping the bookstore in the northwest corner of Montana, but still…is opening the bookstore sensitive to the community?

Last week, I set up the bookstore at a very small farmers market in a very small town, wearing my face mask and having hand sanitizer available. There were four other vendors that day and a handful of folks admiring the lovely early summer produce, perusing flower planters made from old horseshoes, and contemplating delicious bags of homemade fudge. A couple men stopped by the bookstore, gave me a nod and went in. They were each wearing a sidearm, a handgun in a holster. I had focused on keeping things clean and customers safely distanced and now here was a quandary I hadn’t yet considered. Where did I stand on having guns worn in the bookstore?

It has been nearly a week and I am still mulling this quandary over. Do I post a sign stating no firearms allowed? Do I try to engage in a conversation the next time (if there is a next time) when someone comes up to shop for books sporting a gun? Do I shrug it off as after all the two men were polite, bought books, and even talked with me about their choice of books?

I haven’t come up with an answer yet that is personally satisfying. I will take this opportunity though to warn anyone considering opening a bookstore that there will be an awful lot of things to think about.

I’m being careful

It would help if Google translate could distinguish the intonation and nuances of individuals saying, “I’m being careful.” Hopefully someday someone will do a study to tease out what everyone meant who uttered this sentence over the last few months. Even in my small rural community, there is a range of information, misinformation, political beliefs, health beliefs, health concerns and personal preferences manifested in “I’m being careful”.

I’m being careful. I have a mask if I have to leave my house and I wash all the groceries delivered to my door. But really, I haven’t left my house in weeks and I certainly don’t let anyone come visit.

I’m being careful. I only go to the box stores when I am very low on stuff and then I try to keep my distance from other customers. I help some of my neighbors by shopping for them while I am there. When I stop by afterwards to drop off their purchases, I only visit for a few minutes, just long enough to say hello and make sure they are doing okay.

I’m being careful. I wash my hands at least ten times a day and when I come home, I always use the hand sanitizer my mom gave me. When my girl friend comes over, she uses it too.

I’m being careful. I always take my mask with me just in case I have to stand close to someone to talk. I rarely go out – perhaps a few times a week to the grocery store and the post office, perhaps the copy shop. Of course I do the bank’s drive thru and occasionally I do a coffee drive thru but those are obviously safe. And when I get gas, I’m standing outside.

I’m being careful. But I’m 89 years old and really don’t want to spend the time I have left stuck in my house alone. I listen to my doctor but I admit I play cards once a week with friends and invited the grandchildren over on Mother’s Day. Life is short. But, yes, I do try to be as careful as possible.

I’m being careful. I decided to go to Florida to visit my sister for a week but we only walked on the beach in the morning when hardly anyone else was there. And because we know sun and warmth stop the virus, I decided it was fine to visit her rather than just stay stuck at home.

I’m being careful. I only associate with a handful of people who live nearby. We think of ourselves as a social pod so as long as we all are careful, we’ll stay healthy. And besides limiting our group’s exposure to germs, the neighborhood pod keeps us sane. I mean we’re social creatures after all.

I’m being careful. I am making sure we all keep the rights this great country gives us. No one can tell me what to do, and I am being very careful that it stays that way. We had a rally in Helena last week.

I’m being careful. I’ve gone through gallons of bleach! I am being extra careful because I have workers remodeling my bathroom this month and I want to make sure none of us gets sick. And I told those construction guys I didn’t want them partying over the weekend, because we all need to be very cautious during this pandemic.

I’m being careful. We wintered in Arizona and really didn’t socialize a whole lot there once the virus started. Now we’re headed back to Montana for the summer. Of course we’ll be careful, although now the Montana governor announced after June 1 there isn’t any need for people coming in from out of state to quarantine. So what’s a week here or there?

I’m being careful. The local farmers market is opening for the season. They said all vendors should take precautions and make hand sanitizer available for customers. I’ll only allow one person or family group into the traveling bookstore at a time because I’m being careful.