Going Home?

I am headed back to Sarasota for a book signing this weekend.  I called Sarasota home twenty years before a new job opportunity for my groom took us to cooler, mountain climes.  It will be fun to see old friends, but I confess, I am not looking forward to the midsummer heat.

It's no accident that Jane's story starts in Sarasota.  Like Jane, I raised my children there and made a home that was mostly happy and always chaotic.  Just in case you are considering a trip to the Gulf Coast of Florida, Sarasota is a great place to stop and visit a while.  Stay on Siesta Key (the best, most Bohemian of the various beach communities).  Must sees are the beautiful white sand of Crescent beach and no visit to the village is complete without a trip to Big Olaf's Creamery--my son's favorite for many years was "green" ice-cream (mint chocolate chip).  We used to take the kids across the street from our condo on summer evenings and let them exhaust themselves running n the beach and splashing in the water.  Sometimes we'd head down to Point of Rocks to visit the tide pools, a guaranteed way to wear them out as it was a long walk.  After sunset (watch for the flash of green as the sun dips below the horizon) we would head back with them in the trusty radio flyer, stopping by the pool to toss them in for what passed for a bath in those days.

On the mainland, Marina Jack's is a nice spot to spend the cool of the morning or the evening, watching the bay and the boats.  Mote Marine on City Island is a rite of passage for all kids raised in the area.  Nearby is the little sailing club where my kids learned to sail (one of them VERY reluctantly).    The Old Salty Dog is an old mainstay for beer and local seafood.

St. Armand's Circle is a chi-chi place to shop and worth the trip--but not really Jane's style (or mine).  However, the Columbia Restaurant serves up great Cuban food.  Years ago there was a waiter who used to entertain the diners with his ventriloquism--he could "throw" a bird whistle all around the dining room.  Kids especially loved. it.

Heading north along the bay, you'll see the Van Wezel concert hall--a giant purple building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  If more conventional architecture is your style, head up to the Ringling Museum and John Ringling's home Ca' D'Zan.

But just don't spend any time looking for Jane's Victorian in the vicinity of the local hospital.  It isn't there.   On the other hand, if you find a likely looking candidate for Jane's digs (or Kiki's)--send me an image!

Free Box Give and Take

(Originally Published in the Telluride Times Journal--many, many moons ago)

 Of all the institutions that set Telluride apart, the Free Box is one of the most defining. It sets up a paradox that takes a bit of experience and investigation to unravel.  Why, after all, would a community as wealthy as Telluride have a give-away station in the midst of downtown? It is possible for the casual visitor to miss the Free Box: We did on our initial forays into town.

            I learned about it only after reading of various and sundry Free Box adventures reported in the paper. From my distant vantage, I wondered about the contents of the Telluride Free Box. Slightly used Guccis, perhaps, or chipped Waterford? Could I find an old script with margin notes by Tom Cruise, cast aside? Maybe a pair of presidential long-johns? (No, that’s Jackson Hole.)

            I also wondered about the practicalities of such an undertaking. I imagined the reaction of the city fathers in my own town (Sarasota, Fla.) if the citizenry started leaving castoffs in the middle of town for anyone to take.

            Aside from the fact that items left unattended in the Florida heat and humidity either melt or are overtaken by jungle in a matter of hours, local sensibilities simply could not tolerate a year-round, 24hour flea market, even a small one, on the city streets.

            Not only did Telluride have a Free Box, the mere mention of outlawing it seemed enough to raise an armed insurrection among the populace. I made it my business to seek out this venerable institution on my next trip.  Necessity actually forced me to the Free Box.

            The Family had decided to make a pilgrimage from Fall Creek into town to hide up the Bear Creek Trial to the falls. Unaccustomed to the sudden changes of summer weather, we found ourselves stranded by a violent thunderstorm.

            We hunkered down in our 99cent Wal-Mart emergency plastic rain ponchos, in high-visibility orange, and perched under the rim of a huge boulder just below the falls.  The overhang of the boulder was slightly less than my own, so I spent an hour or so crouched under a few tons of rocks, water dripping onto my head and oozing around my boots. I personally prefer watching nature’s pyrotechnics from the safety of a dry, cozy house.

            We distracted the children from the fact that the trail is surrounded by lightening-rod sized trees by spinning a tale about the origins of the big, flat stones that cover the trail (leftovers from a bear who was carrying them up to build a fire place for his cabin, in case you’re interested.) When we finally unfolded ourselves from our roost, we were tired, cold and soaked to the skin.

            Back at the trailhead, a quick inventory of our rented chariot confirmed the worst - no dry clothes.

            Aside from a premature end to a day we planned to spend moseying about Telluride and enjoying one of its summer festivals, the possibility of pneumonia loomed large. The storm had been the leading edge of a front, and the temperature was dropping even as my groom and I exchanged light hearted invectives about whose fault it was that the sweatshirts were not in the car.

            Never on to be thwarted by circumstance or to ask permission when forgiveness would do, my son disappeared up the street and returned a few minutes later, pulling a clean, dry Telluride Blues Festival T-shirt over his head and clutching a chipped Boy Scout cup that he announced would form the nucleus of a collection of “Boy Scout stuff.”  When queried about its origins, he replied, “The Free Box.” Hypothermia overcame any residual timidity about using a local resource, and the rest of us followed. My daughter found an oversized cotton sweater and a rakish beret, and immediately became or resident beatnik for the remainder of the trip.  

         

            My own treasure was a fuchsia pullover that has become the staple of my camping clothing. It’s warm, comfortable and makes me easy to spot in a crowd. I also discovered after being repeatedly dive-bombed by tiny, aerobatic birds, which is a great attraction to the local hummers, who think of me as just another giant flower, rather than an aging flower child.

            Thus provided for, we doffed our wet gear, decked out in our Free Box duds, and spent the rest of the day at a magic festival enjoying a Telluride summer day. Since then, the Free Box has provided a swimsuit for a visiting relative who wanted to take a soak in the local hot springs, reading matter for inclement days, and most recently the gravalox recipe I’ve been searching for all my life.  

 

            In return, we’ve taken to packing with an eye for what we can leave at the box as we depart sort of and offering to insure a good and timely homecoming. I’ve come to appreciate (I think) the integral part the Free Box plays in Telluride culture.

            Everybody seems to take, and everybody seems to donate. I came to understand that it is not just an exercise in largess from the well off to the deserving needy. The Free Box is an expression of neighborliness among friends who share among themselves out of their abundance, inherent thriftiness and community.

            I’ve never left Guccis- or seen them there, for that matter. Free Box donations really seem to be pretty ordinary, but with a Telluride slant. The same well-used baby toys I remember my kids playing with turn up in the Free Box alongside a syllabus for an advanced course in physical anthropology and the latest New Age literature; ski boots with built-in heating units and first children’s hiking boots lie beside cheap sneakers with little wear left in them.

            An enterprising graduate student could do a thesis about Telluride’s economy from Free Box leavings. After all, the dearth of Waterford proves that despite its over-the-top prosperity, Telluride’s strength is in people who wear ordinary clothes and do extraordinary things. Like keep the Free Box working against the odds.

Signings

We combined our usual Western trip with the opportunity to sign a few books along the way.  This business of selling books--not just writing them--is all new to me and a little overwhelming for an introvert who would much rather spend time in her study.  Talking to strangers is a tall order.

But I've found out a couple of things.  First, independent bookstores are welcoming places and the staff are eager to help out the uninformed and uninitiated when it comes to books signings.  Good thing.  There's a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into setting up events and a novice like me has not a clue.  Thanks be that these folks are patient with mistakes and understanding of the mis-steps of a first timer.


More than that though are the folks who own and staff these places.  The people who own indie bookshops are simply amazing, with very interesting stories usually involving a life-long love of reading and a series of happenstances that bring them to selling books for a living.  Bobbie Smith, one of the owners of Between the Covers, started out as a baker for the cafe that is part of the enterprise, then a bookseller in the shop.  When an accident forced an change in her husband's career, the opportunity to purchase opened up and she's been going strong ever since along with her co-owner, Daiva Chesonis, who has a master's degree in conflict resolution.  Sitting in the shop for a couple of hours the afternoon of the signing and watching people come and go, it's even more evident to me how important BTC is to Telluride. It's not just a place for books; it's a place for community and it is clear that these two dynamic women are a good part of the reason. They know their clientele, they like them and the shop reflects that.  No one, not even a tourist, leaves the shop without feeling unwelcome or apart.

That's really one of the more important functions of books, I think: creating community over space and time.  A writer sharing ideas and something of himself to people he may never meet.  Unexpected commonality. Meet a stranger, discover that you've read the same book and there's instant common ground. The broader your reading, the more community you have.  If you look at the contents of the average indie bookstore, you'll find that there's a wide variety of thought represented.

Go, explore!  Buy!  ( I came back from the tour with The Death of Conversation and a tote bag emblazoned with a 7-panel precis of Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find.  The groom bought a coloring book.  See what I mean?)

Then there is ambience.  Every bookstore has a place to sit and ponder your purchases, but there is something special about indies.  They are often paired with cafes, usually have eclectic decor, and they are inviting, as individual as the visions of their owners.  Go to Nightbird Books and you'll find a comfortable seating area with a floor to ceiling cage of finches--and nobody minds if you just hang out a while checking out the inventory.  In the back room is a long table perfect for the many book clubs that meet there--one of which, the foreign poetry group, came in as I was leaving.  Look at their calendar and you'll see how Nightbird brings people together.  There's nary a week week on the calendar without a signing, a reading, or a club meeting.

We've started to realize the value to our health of fresh, local food.  Perhaps we need to remember that there's a "heathy, fresh, local" version of book selling, too: places where community happens in so many ways.  Here's to the indie bookstores who make all that possible!