We are on PAUSE (Policies Assure Uniform Safety for Everyone) here in New York State, which is under relentless assault from the novel coronavirus. All "non-essential" employees must stay away from workplaces, and new rules of social conduct have been implemented. As a person of a certain age, I'm deemed particularly vulnerable, and thus self-isolating. I am lucky, however, in that my job entails paying close attention via computer to what is happening in the book world.
Much of this has been deeply distressing, but I've also found so many shining examples of innovation, courage and compassion that hope remains intact. The bricks-and-mortar bookstore as refuge and sanctuary has been suspended for the moment, though there are hundreds of variations on the theme of indie booksellers improvising to sustain connections with their communities. We've been showcasing them daily in Shelf Awareness.
There is no business as usual anymore. "Every day at this time I get an e-mail from the folks closing up at both businesses," Little Joe's Books, Katonah, N.Y., posted on Facebook Wednesday. "I miss this e-mail more than you can imagine as there is often something personal or a little story about the day's events. Today here's my end of day report: A morning customer checked in to ask about our staff and to tell them he's thinking about them. The staff hopes his wife who is pregnant is doing well--but they also hope she knows he takes three sugars in his latte.
"Another customer is on her next to last bag of cinnamon tea and hopes we can help her out soon. Her son urged her to use the word penultimate in the request, so we assume his homeschooling is going just fine. Another customer is nearly out of jellybeans and needs a desperate shipment. We spent the day torn between wanting to fill orders and get goods to our people--and listening to Cuomo's orders to just STAY HOME. And just so it's clear--we love hearing about you missing us and needing your goodies. Because it's sooo normal. And I pass the stories along to the staff every day to keep them cheerful too. Anyway, we hope you are listening too and staying home so we can come back sooner."
I'm thinking about one of my ancestors. He lived in a cave. It was a long time ago, though he had fire by then. One of his morning rituals was to stoke the embers and get a flame going before the family woke up. The fire was probably near the cave's entrance, to let smoke out and keep creatures that weren't part of the family at bay. As my ancestor squatted near the blaze, he would survey the distant terrain--maybe open land, maybe high grass, maybe trees, maybe undergrowth--that might camouflage life-threatening hazards... and food.
A good provider, he made daily calculations: the family's survival depended upon how far he was willing to venture out on the open savannah, or into the forest, to hunt and gather. Stay in the cave too long and his family died of hunger. Go too far away from it and he became prey. That he survived long enough to keep threads of my DNA going is a testament to his ability to strike a balance between the two.
With the microscopic predator Covid-19 on a worldwide hunt for us now, we all wake each morning and squat near our own cave entrances, calculating how much we're willing to risk to get through another day safely.
Refuge and prospect.
In his book The Experience of Landscape, Jay Appleton explores the Prospect-Refuge theory through the lens of our oldest instincts for survival, as applied to our aesthetic experience of landscape. He describes an edge-of-the-wood phenomenon in which a woodland is "usually depicted with an unenclosed, penetrable edge and often a path, or paths, leading invitingly into the trees. The effect is enhanced by accentuating the details of the symbolism in either half; the prospect is distinguished by clarity, distance and sometimes falling ground, the refuge by an impression of the darkness, depth and capaciousness of the woodland in which the observer can at his own choosing, be swallowed up."
A bookshop traditionally provides the temporary refuge of a quiet and cozy space, while simultaneously offering limitless prospect within the pages of books on its shelves. Now the terrain has shifted dramatically. Indie booksellers, however, have always ventured a little farther from the cave in search of ways to survive... and to evolve. They will continue to sustain, and be sustained by, their extended families.
"Hi everyone. Clare here saying hello. ;) Damn I miss you people," Clare Brooks, owner of Little Village Toy & Book Shop, Littleton, N.H., posted on Facebook earlier this week: "Truth is I am a hermit when not in the shop. Hanging in the woods with my little clan. Feeling grateful. The shop is my social outlet and I am grateful for every minute of it. Your smiles and greetings when you walk in the door... damn I loved those. The fact is... this sucks... really bad. BUT we are all in this together man and I will be damned if our community doesn't come out swinging after this.... Now let's keep that village mindset and get up tomorrow and do it again and be grateful."