Small bookseller thoughts, a bout with the infamous Covid-19, and summertime mindfulness in Minneapolis
I’m back, baybee! I’ve been enjoying my summer, my job, and my friends, and I’ve been going through a catch-up phase with life. This is a a little blog post, and by little, I mean a lot of ramblings. There are no real revelations here. I just know that I need to break the ‘no blog post on Fridays’ streak, so here I am, forcing myself to get the creative juices flowing.
Not writing is stressful, but the stress of not writing goes up 3 times higher when you look at books all day. I see books like, “how to heal yourself with your mind,” and I’m like, “this person wrote this and actually had it published?” I saw a mystery writer’s book the other day and the cover said “his 26th best-selling novel,” and I thought… “This guy wrote 26 best-selling books?! I don’t even think I’ve written 26 personal blog posts.” So here I am, making this number 21? So read this and enjoy.
Some tiny bookseller thoughts
I got a job working as a bookseller. That's right–I’m living my Meg Ryan in a Rom-Com dreams of becoming a bookseller at a used bookstore. It’s been such a fun and fulfilling experience. You know that cliché phrase, “enjoy the little things in life…” Well, that's basically what I do all day working at the bookstore.
Children flip through my childhood favorite, “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie,” and I get misty eyed… I find little notes and dedications to unknown lovers and friends nestled deep in the pages of classics, and I help people remember that one author who wrote that one mystery back in 2012. There’s truly nothing more hopeful and human than seeing all these people wandering around the store seeking knowledge and expanding their understanding of the world.
We have a cart of books that are popular sellers that need to be shelved first. We shelve them according to the topic, then from there we have systems to organize them, such as alphabetized by author and what have you. I spend a solid 20% of my time helping customers, and the other 80% of the time I’m deciding where a book deserves to be shelved.
Sometimes I pick up a book that covers two or three major topics, for example, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It could be shelved in multiple places like memoir, travel, or buddhism. No one spot is inappropriate for shelving, but usually one element shines through slightly more than the rest (and for anyone wondering, we keep that on the "eastern philosophy” shelf of Religion & Philosophy).
I realized somewhere between shelving hundreds of these multifaceted, difficult to place books, that I relate to that misplaced, multi-topic feeling. I feel like a book written across many interests, and I don’t fit neatly on a specific shelf. It’s very similar to when Katy Perry felt like a plastic bag, whipping through the wind, ready to start again.
I write, I paint, I do photography, I skateboard, I make clay sculptures, I hike, I thrift, and explore big cities, attend live music shows, play the ukulele, tend to my plants, and occasionally make tiny outfits for Bruce (my cat). It's okay to be more than one thing, and sometimes being about two topics makes something more desirable… or–at the very least–more likely to be admired on the shelf.
3 weeks before I got Covid, still masking, even in the museum. I’m just a girl… standing in front of a boy… asking him to take a photo of me with the large replica of a giant prehistoric beaver. (I was disappointed to learn it wasn’t real. Its just made of chewbacca fur or something)
My bout with Covid-19
It finally happened. I got Covid-19 two and a half years after the first wave that shuttered the entire planet, coincidentally also virally spreading commercials of celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” over Zoom (thankfully, my brain has repressed the first 2 months of those early days). I gotta hand it to my Pfizer Vaccine, because I made it 2 masked months into my customer facing job, with probably 500+ face-to-face masked interactions before IT got me.
I always did my best to avoid Covid, but I felt so much guilt for catching it, because there’s a weird energy about it online. Some people don’t even think the pandemic exists (which it does, don’t be silly), and the other half is following guidelines (good, thank you). Some are even REALLY following it (ie: still isolating, which… extra good, I suppose?) but I miss my friends and having money, so I caved and went back to “normal” which can only be described as, “half as social as I was in 2019, with 1,000 times more energy being drained.”
Anyway, I had no smell, no taste, full body chills, and a low-grade fever. I’m terrified to think of how much worse it could have been had I not been fully vaccinated. Thankfully it only felt like a flu, especially considering I hadn’t been sick with even a cold since 2019 (in case you’re wondering if handwashing and masking works, obviously yes). The privilege of being vaccinated and able bodied is so palpable, and I’m lucky to be healthy.
While in quarantine, I spent a lot of time wishing I could clean my tiny Minneapolis apartment, write a slice of life essay, work on my vegetable garden, or read one of the many bestselling novels I’ve collected a problematic amount of, but I was just too exhausted. Everything hurt, including my eyeballs, so I just slept Covid off for 4 days, and after my symptoms diminished, I cleaned my shoebox apartment, finished my DIY plant shelf project, and read some books. But yes, I’m grateful I got through it, and that I’m lucky enough to remain healthy post-covid.
A summer night in Minneapolis.
Taking in the Minneapolis summer
Summer is my favorite season–especially in Minnesota. Last year, I thought a lot about escaping the Twin Cities, and sometimes I still feel like that. I can’t tell if I’m restless, or if I’ve outgrown Minneapolis, or even Minnesota as a whole. When I traveling, I always think “I could live here. I want to move here,” here being anywhere with bigger cities than Minnesota. To be honest, I blame the four very well seasoned seasons we get here in the land of 10,000 lakes, because I personally only truly enjoy summer. Even fall is a little too cold and cliché for me. (Pumpkins! We get it. enough already!)
I told Eric one year ago, “I want to go hiking once a week!” and we went fairly often, but not weekly, which I promised him this year I would try again, at least for exercise’s sake. The feeling of leaving the city to explore nature can only be described as miniature culture shock. We went on a hike, about 2 days after the end of our quarantine. It was a Monday, and nobody was out hiking since it was no longer a weekend.
As we trudged along the Kettle River, the birds sang, the leaves shook, and the animals rustled in places unseen by the basic human eye. My mind raced in the eerie silence of the path we traveled, leaving me uncomfortable with the level of quiet surrounding us. I attempted to chat to fill the void, but after about 20 minutes, I had nothing more to comment on, causing me to become truly present. The sounds were nice. It’s a feeling I don’t get to experience very often where I live, but I think that’s because I wear airpods most of the time while walking in public.
Once back in my little metropolis, I did my best to recreate the feeling I had walking near that river with my mind clear, ears open, and my mouth shut. I decided to leave my airpods in my tote bag just taking in the full surroundings. Trotting to the nearby grocery store, I listened to sirens wailing, birds singing through the golden hour, and the planes humming in the distance, with long jet trails expanding into the setting sun. I wondered where those people in the plane were going, and if they’d ever know how energizing a place like Minneapolis is in the summertime.
