Today a wonderful thing happened: I found a perfect place.
There are perfect places in the
world. I believe strongly that under the kitchen table is one of them, along
with the Mulberry Riverwalk in Braselton, Georgia, just to name a couple. Today, I add to my list the coffee shop I rediscovered in my hometown
area of the Quad Cities. We’ve lived back in the Midwest for two years now, and
I had not yet found my writing place. Today, it has been found.
I’m so sentimental about where I do my writing. Then again,
I’m sentimental about most things. My personality likes things to stay the
same. I like what I like. I like traditions, routines, and am highly affected
by my environment. I began writing about the Hewletts and the Existence when we
lived in Georgia. That was a long time ago. You know, way back when Borders was
still a place you could go into and buy a book (or, in my more often instance,
a place you could go into and write a
book). So, from the beginning, I wrote at the kitchen table, and at the
Borders. I tried other places, but couldn’t do it. A lot happened there at the
Buford Borders. Not to be dramatic, but it’s where I got to know the Hewletts,
and one time I even sat with someone while they died in the parking lot.
Borders was important and dear to me. That’s why when we moved from Georgia to
Colorado, one of my top priority tasks was to locate the Borders. Unfortunately
this Borders was inside a shopping mall. Not my favorite thing. But it was
still a Borders; the tables were the same, the chairs were the same, the drinks
were the same, it was Borders Bookstore and I was able to be at home there. I
finished the first installment of The Adventures of the Brothers Brave and
Noble there. I remember so clearly the night I finished. When the last scene
and sentence came into my head I felt so many things. I loved it and new it was
wonderful, but I also was so nervous that I had to get up and walk away
from my Borders-brand table and my Borders-brand chair before I could type that
last sentence. My hands were shaking and I actually took a detour towards the
restrooms because in a flash of nerves I considered getting sick. It was the
end. The big “The End” end. And I did it all at the Borders and the kitchen
table.
Then, news broke that Borders wasn’t doing so well and would
be permanently closing their doors- everywhere. I was angry. I “liked” all the
Facebook articles about why Kindles and Amazon were from the Devil and what
Jesus would do is shop at a storefront bookstore and read a book with real
pages you could turn and fold the corners on (even though Jesus would never dog ear the corner of a page in a
book. Never ever.) I’ve changed my
tune since then, but to this day I miss Borders Bookstore. I still have the Borders Rewards key
FOB on my key ring, and my Goodman (who I’ve told you about before) actually
surprised me by taking us to the Borders the week they were closing, and had me
pick out two Borders-brand chairs and purchased them for me. “You can still
write at the kitchen table you started at and the chair you finished in.” I
know getting sentimental over a bookstore chair is silly. But I never have
minded much that I'm silly.
So as summer is ending and I’m getting back to work, I’m
glad to be sitting here at this new place, knowing that later I’ll go home and
sit at my kitchen table in my Borders-brand chair, and from these perfect
places I’ll keep telling the stories of those friends that keep us company in all the places, especially the not-so-perfect ones.
From under the kitchen table,
clh
