Hope is the Thing with Feathers — Emily Dickinson
Our proprietors have returned from their vacances with new energy, new project plans, new pen pals and plenty of inspiration from the old country!
We cleaned the Emporium shelves and opened the windows to make room for new creative energy. What inspired us? A number of things.
If you listen, you will know. Can you hear the birds? How about the pedestrians greeting one another, perhaps in another language that you may still find familiar? Can you hear the distant revving of a motor scooter or the closer ring of a bicycle’s bell? Can you smell the loaves of fresh bread from the boulangerie/patisserie, nearby? See the red geraniums in the window box?
Or you may take a walk and view the deep green leaves of very tall trees and an ornate iron gate to a park. If you listen now, you hear the water of a fountain and the calls of ducklings swimming just beyond the trees. There’s a cylindrical, red box near the gate at the end of the tree-lined street. It’s time to mail those letters! And on the same block, near an ancient church, is a time machine. (Well, it’s really a phone box, but it will always appear as a time machine to many of us.) Some of us may even think that if we get to the correct phone box and dial a certain number, we’ll be magically transported to other places.
The contrast of the rich reds and deep greens, the sunlight and the birdsongs have recharged our batteries. The proprietors highly recommend a train trip to you; we learned how to navigate four new train systems that were almost – but not quite – like the ones we have in the U.S. If you don’t have access to a train, read your favorite short story aloud to someone you care about and find out how relaxing it is to take a vacation, in your mind, heart and life.
Thanks for your patience as we assemble our new work, renewed and grateful for the respite.
Stay tuned for additional pieces on the Etsy site and for journal entries about the adventures of the Theme Song Committee.