Aunt Samantha is my mother’s sister and as different from her as night is to day.
My mother was a practicing Catholic, a very traditional woman, a rule follower - a staunch Republican. Aunt Samantha on the other hand is a Pagan – an Earthy, animal loving, tree-hugging woman who practices yoga and is a vegetarian. Get the picture?
My mother married young and started right off raising me. Aunt Samantha has never been married. She doesn’t even believe in the concept of legal marriage. Her idea of marrying someone includes common vows and some kind of ’stepping over a broom’ ritual. I’ve not been privy to that so I can’t give many details. But she has lived with the same man – Peter, for twenty years so I guess something is working for her.
Anyway, up until three years ago Aunt Samantha and Peter lived in New England and ran a thriving metaphysical bookstore business. Not long after my parents died, my aunt and uncle purchased a small store downtown and moved their entire business here.
Aunt Samantha says she was tired of the fast pace and the cold weather, but I think it was more because she was worried about me being alone and wanted to be closer to me. She’s has always been more like an older sister to me than like an aunt. Either way, I was happy she moved.
Our town is fairly small - picture the town on the show ‘Ghost Whisperer’ and you’ll have the idea. The ‘Big City’ is a good twenty-five minute drive from here. I didn’t think the concept of a metaphysical bookstore would go over well but I was wrong. It turns out that the ‘Big City’ has nothing close to what her store offers and quite of our customers make the drive regularly. Word of mouth brings new customers all of the time too.
The bookstore is two levels. To accommodate the non-pagan types, my aunt has turned the bottom level of the bookstore into a used book store. People can trade books and buy them. And there’s a monthly book reading group. I’m still considering trying that out.
The upper part of the store has two sections. The front section which has tons of books on all kinds of ‘New Age’ subjects and items like candles, incense, jewelry, and music etc. The back part of the top level has a warm, cozy cafe that serves freshly made sandwiches, salads, soups, pastries, and drinks – lots of coffee!
The bookstore has soft ‘New Age’ music playing all the time and smells faintly of incense downstairs. It’s a good bit stronger upstairs.
I don’t know if it’s because of my love for books, or the effect of the whole environment, but within five minutes of walking in the front door and hearing the little bells tinkling, that announce a customer’s arrival, I feel totally relaxed. I don’t care how wound up I am when I walk in, the bookstore always washes away my tension. I absolutely love it there.
Anyway, I’m taking a well-deserved year off from school before I go back to work on my Doctorate in 2009. In the interim, I have offered to help Aunt Samantha run the store. That way she can take some personal time off is she likes, or putter around chatting and directing the customers, or just sit down and read someone’s Tarot cards without having to worry about running to the register every five minutes.
My job is to just sit at the register and direct people to books and ring up their purchases. In between customers I either surf the Net on the bookstore’s WiFy or read a bit from whatever novel I currently have my nose burried in. The coffee shop is free for me and the clientele are interesting to watch.
What else could a girl ask for?
A hot date maybe…
The Bookstore
Jewels
