In April of this year, about four months ago, the coffee shop closed in the physical sense.
I say physical because what it was, still exists in our minds and hearts. Corky said one time that the coffee shop experience was like a sweet dream we had and now we have to wake up. It made me cry when she said that but for some reason I kind of like that explanation.
We can hold onto that sweet dream that all of us together created, starting with Cherie and her need for a good cup of coffee. She brought so many different people together and then left us in the prime of her life, not even hitting 50 before she was jettisoned off the planet, to where we do not know. I do know this life on earth is not all there is. There is more, more than we humans can even comprehend.
What we did at/in/around/with the coffee shop was a good thing.
It's not gone... that thing we created, our connections, our friends made, feelings shared, even the hard things were good. We grieved together, we sang, we shared stories, we shared ourselves, we healed, not just from losing our dear friend, but we healed some other things too in the course of it all.
We loved. We wept and laughed, sang and yes, we had some doozie arguments. But isn't that life? Life ain't always *just fine*.
The building itself and the other tenants were important and part of it all. TC and her dog grooming, appearing at the back door, wet and dripping from washing dog after dog...the Native American women burning sage and beating their drums, the ceramics woman (what's her name?) yelling at us for parking in front of her shop even though she was hardly ever open:-)Glenda and her sister selling antiques and always saying she was moving from the day she moved in, until she finally really did move.
Julie brought in a whole other slice of Melrose society with her NestFeathers shop. Wanda who wandered in for quiche and ended up renting the shop next door.
Even the building owners were a part of it. They were all wicked. If I win the lottery I will buy the building back. Oh no I won't. Not really. It was an experience, an adventure, life-changing for many people. Now we go on.
Remember the sweet times we had there. Remember the gardens...the reason for the title of this post. The bad man who now rents the space ripped out every single green growing thing which was on the patio. Even the concrete block planters themselves are gone. It is sickening to see what right-wing homophobes think is really cool... a naked bare spaced parking lot...Like the clear-cutting of our forests. Thanks to David Alexander for saving the statue right as the guy was ready to plow it down. It now resides at the Bellamy Road Art Gallery.
So many times people would stop me in the grocery store or the library and tell me how much they appreciated the garden out front. How they stopped on their way home and sat there at night, in the peace, the sweet loveliness of the odd conglomeration of plants surrounding the patio. My friend Rainy says I am like Johnny Appleseed, planting these gardens wherever I go. Someday I dream of having my own garden, on my own land, where I don't leave. I stay until I get jettisoned somewhere, somewhere I hope I run into Cherie, Hap, and my grandmother.
So, I am going to post all the pictures I have from the history of the shop. Over there on the righthand side are many and scroll down on the left side for several photo albums. More will be added. If you have some you would like to share, send them to me. I'll post them and add them to this short history of one small magical place.
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