A bit of a shock to realize it has been over a month since the last post here. In some ways, no surprise because there are the typical summer bookstore events such as setting up weekly at farmers markets in Lincoln County, Montana and helping with community events here such as Sunburst Arts concerts and the Eureka Montana Quilt Show. I did manage to include an artist book in the Quilt Show as a teaser, a book with twenty-seven short stories about people whose names were embroidered on a lovely quilt believed to have originally come from Kentucky. So yes, it is summer in Montana so chock-a-block full of happenings.
Then there is the transition as this bookstore owner shifts from her base in northwest Montana to Baltimore, Maryland. It is certainly a process and it is happening. At this moment, all my household belongings are sitting in neat piles in Baltimore waiting for my October arrival. Boxes and boxes of books (I suppose the correct term is inventory) are in a friend's garage in Eureka, Montana so easily accessible for this summer's bookstore needs. But despite what might be considered "scattered" by some, it feels this is life which is always in some sort of transition. And isn't this what life is about from the moment we are born?
Which brings up the question about why am I moving to Baltimore. Senior housing. Just as I thought about what I wanted to do with my life after leaving high school (got a job as a dishwasher, eventually became a waitress and then shifted to a cook), then later in my mid-twenties decided a university education would be useful and so began the process of researching which school best suited me and applying, I began thinking about this next phase of my life about five years ago. Where would be a good place to live now, what sort of housing would suit me, and how did I want to spend my time? Of course, I wanted to continue the traveling bookstore, but wouldn't it be great to live somewhere I could easily walk to shops, to a library, to catch a bus to go to a doctor's appointment, to hear a concert when I didn't feel like driving? And so going back to how I investigated the best school for me, or what career matched my interests and skills, I investigated cities and senior housing.
And finally discovered what feels like the ideal one in Baltimore. Of course, there was an application process and a long waiting list but now that has shifted to an apartment that suits me well, and a parking space that fits the bookstore. Not only a good place to live and park, but things happening in that city like the annual Baltimore Crankie Festival (and lots of crankie enthusiasts), and the Baltimore Print Studios which has all things letterpress and can you just imagine the new projects to be undertaken there! I could go on and on as I discover places like Red Emma's Bookstore, The Ivy Bookstop, The American Visionary Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Love and Cornbread. And the Enoch Pratt Free Library!! No doubt there will be many more once I settle in. Plus all sorts of new places to set up the bookstore stretching from Maine to Florida, and yes, going west as well.
Transitions. Are you thinking about yours? Have you undertaken your own investigation to figure out what next step best suits you? I hope so.
The Virtues of Aging by Jimmy Carter
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
A Long Bright Future by Laura Carstensen
Older Women Who Work: Resilience, Choice, and Change by Ellen Cole
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