RedHornet’s 23 Days of Bliss: Days 22-23
-rest, recuperation and reflection


I had several choices around how to spend my time tonight. I settled on paying my final visit to A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books—because I owe it to the place.

A Clean well-Lighted Place, the indie bookstore just four blocks from my apartment, is going out of business, and the shelves are all but picked clean. An Indian dirge played as I entered. The manager made them change the music immediately. “Too oppressive,” he said.

I wrote a note to the manager just now. It read:

Dear Neal,
Thanks so much for all that you put into ACWLP -- I took my first writing classes through your store, gave my first student reading there, and went on to get an MFA, which changed my life. Your place has offered me much comfort over the years, thank you.


Simple, but genuine, like the store was. What I didn’t mention was that this simple building filled with avid readers gave me a few other things—a crush when I really needed one, lest I start to think that my love-life is over at 25, like I did then; now I had a place to go and think, I wonder if he’ll be here. I had my star-struck writer’s moment there; to this day K—thinks that I made Russell Banks cry by my thanks and praises; I disagree. Most importantly, though, I found myself there touching the book covers and hoping, whenever I felt I was losing sight of what I really wanted, hoping and knowing that I could have what I wanted; soon after each visit, I was on the path again.

I am on the path again, still searching for the direction that I need to be going, but still hopeful; balancing when to take control and when to let time take course, this a life-long skill that I wonder if I’ll ever master, or if anyone ever really masters. Absorbing the bliss when I can, answering the call to go forth if I have to—if even this city swallows up bookstores, what next? Trying to answer this question with light feet, knowing that the answer, yes, is not me.