Last weekend we had a memorial service for Barbara, one of the owners of Volumes of Pleasure Bookstore. Hundreds of people filled the little church in Los Osos. And hundreds more sent cards.

One of our regular customers organized a cookie chain. People who attended brought platters of cookies for all to share. Many of our regular customers came out to honor Barbara and comfort Carroll. Former employees came from other parts of the state.

It was a wonderful and heart felt “community” event. Yes, it was a memorial but it was also a gathering of the community and a testament to the impact that an independent store and that stores owners can have upon their community. Carroll and Barbara matter to people. What they have done to support our community has mattered. The service they have provided for over two decades has mattered.

Can we ask for much more from our lives than to have what we did with it matter? To one, to several, to our family, to our community, to the masses. However far our touch reaches, don’t we just want it to matter? In the end.

Just got me thinking.    

Go in Peace, Barbara.

Our children’s department is a safe haven where kids can be while Mom and Dad shop. We have a toy box filled with good old fashioned toys like a Fisher Price Activity Center. Remember those? It actually has a date stamped on it: 1986! We have a rotary dial phone on a pull string, a plastic cat carrier with a little furry cat inside. A spinning top is a favorite of many of our littlest customers. You push down on it and it spins. That’s all it does. Spin. And the kids love it.

One of my favorite children’s books that we carry is “It’s A Book” by Lane Smith. It reminds me of our spinning top. In “It’s a Book” a monkey is reading a book. A jackass comes up to him and asks him, what is that? It’s a book. What does it do? Nothing. It’s a book. How do you turn it on? You don’t. It’s a book. What does the top do? It spins. It just spins? Yep, isn’t it wonderful!

When our regular little customers come in they dart through the maze of book cases and displays in the main store and head right for “their” department. Two small sisters who come in regularly each grab a book, sit on the floor and read their respective selections. Out loud. At the same time.

Over the years children small and tall have told me that this is their favorite store. Even though we don’t sell that must have attachment to the most recent must have gadget. Or the most exciting computer game. Older kids feel like they grew up here. It hasn’t changed much over the years. And that is one of the things they like about it. It even smells the same, they tell me. I imagine it still feels like that safe haven. And isn’t that wonderful! 

What I love about independent bookstores is that each one has its own focus, its own flavor. The Bodhi Tree in Los Angeles (sadly gone now) was a place of absolute wonder in the metaphysical hay-days of the 1980’s. Little rooms attached to other little rooms no bigger than closets. You could find everything from the common Kahlil Gibran to the most obscure pagan testament.

City Lights is housed in an old building in San Francisco. Funny how so many independent bookstores exist in old buildings. You enter into a mezzanine where the cashiers hang out. You can go to your right and up a couple of steps to a maze of small connected rooms or straight ahead and down the stairs to a one room basement. All rich with the scent of books and dampness and oldness. City Lights carries everything with a leaning toward beatnik and hippie and renegade writings. Of course!

Our store has a metaphysical leaning. I had a customer come in one day looking for Christian books. I walked him to our religious section where we have books about Christianity and Bibles, books about Judaism, Gnostic writings, the saints. I then told him that we had another section with books about Buddha, Zen, Hindu, Pagan, Muslim, Tao and Islam teachings. He asked me why the Christian section wasn’t bigger. I told him there was a large Christian bookstore in San Luis Obispo. They carry only Christian books. He informed me that that didn’t matter. “This is America,” he said, “you should have more Christian books.”

No, this is America and we are an independent bookstore and we should carry any type of book we want to carry in any quantity we choose. That is the sheer beauty of it. Isn’t it?    

I didn’t mention to the man that we have a Wiccan section. Maybe I should have!

We have many local authors in our community. I don’t know if we have more than most but we have a lot. At our bookstore we have a section for local authors. Just inside the front door. They don’t sell very well as a rule. It makes me wonder about writers supporting other writers.

I used to own an art gallery in San Luis Obispo, our central city. It was one of those galleries where the artists rented space. It was beautiful, did well and graced the mezzanine that circled my art supply store on the ground floor. I came to know many of the local artist, of which we have many—I do believe that this is a particularly creative community. One thing I became very aware of was that the artists I met and came to know didn’t buy each other’s work. I have been in several artists homes and saw only their own art on their walls. I know writers who never buy contemporary novels. They say they don’t have time to read.

We artists, writers, count on others to buy our work. Bottom line. That’s what it takes. I would hope that those who paddle around in the same creative pool would know that better than most and support each other. I would hope.    

I work in a small independent bookstore on the Central Coast of California in a town with one of those downtowns that you can miss by blinking—as the clique goes. But, the people who live in this town whisper to each other, “I love it here. Don’t you love it here? Shhh…don’t tell anyone.”  

Our little town sits about ten miles from one of the most amazing shorelines in the world. Our bookstore sits next to one of the most popular bakeries in the county. We’ve been in business for over 30 years. We’ve weathered Barnes and Knoble and Boarders coming into the community at large. We survived Amazon stomping into the book world, even though Boarders didn’t. Will we survive e-books? I don’t know.

I have a Kindle. I do. My husband bought it for me for Christmas a couple of years ago. He bought it for me because he knows how much I love to read. He bought it for me in-spite of the fact that I work in an independent bookstore. Sweet. Sort of. I waited two years before I told my employers I own a Kindle. I still haven’t told them I have e-book available on Amazon. Yikes!

We are one of the last independent bookstores in our county. Five have closed their doors since I moved here thirteen years ago.

Independent bookstores are worlds within their own worlds. They each have their own smell, their own light, their own sensibility. Usually their own cat. Have you ever been in City Lights in San Francisco? Or Powell’s in Portland, Oregon? Then you know what I mean. 

Are you lucky enough to have one in your town?