The Word café
I’ve spent considerable time over the years imagining returning to live and work in Canada. I did it more in the early years than recently, but still, the total energy and time are considerable. In recent years, though, I’ve spoken less about it. Maybe I will return to Canada to die. Or, maybe I will die here. If I returned, what would I do? Specifically, what would I do for money? Even now, at this date, who would hire me at my age? I’m intelligent and I have lots of experience, but who cares? I’m a permanent outsider.
The self-evident solution is a small retirement business. Self-employment and master of myself for my final years. But what kind of business? I have no business education or experience. But apart from that, I’ve thought about used bookstores in various locations, contrary to everyone’s counsel against that idea in this age of independent bookstores closing in the face of competition from Amazon and digital media. I don’t care for such counsel. I know that print will never die, it will always have a market, and that as far as independent print bookstores are concerned it’s a matter of finding a new equilibrium with the opposition. I’ve thought about simply buying a business from someone who wants to retire.
One day in November I had a startlingly clear dream of a café in my hometown that I would call The Word Café, or maybe just The Word. It would be a place for coffee and tea and pastries and cake, and lots and lots of printed Bibles and other holy books (Qurans, Talmuds and other Jewish commentaries, Upanishads, etc.). The idea is for a it to be a place for people to gather to discuss heavy topics, like God and religion, while enjoying the company.
I dreamed a space of heavy wooden furniture. I imagined digital Scripture on iPads but mainly printed Bibles of all sizes, languages and editions. I imagined some more valuable books would even be chained, or locked in cabinets like a medieval library.
It’s not just a place for active religious people. It’s a place for anybody, even atheists.
A European salon is the notion behind the dream. I mean a “salon” as in a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation.
Well, it was only a dream.