BORDERS: A Wake

So as I am sure you have noticed, there is no more BORDERS. As a corporation they no longer exist save for the poor souls in offices signing the loads of paperwork that I am sure accompany the ending of a company. They are closed after, “40 years of igniting the love of reading in generations of customers.” (Mike Edwards, CEO) While most of us shrugged and walked on, moving forward with the inevitability of it, there are those of us who will mourn. It’s only natural when something that we cared about leaves us. Why did they go under? What happened? Well the CEO in an email to subscribing customers said this, “In a nutshell, following continued negotiations and the best efforts from all parties, no bidders presented a formal proposal to keep our company operating as a going concern.” Essentially, BORDERS went under because nobody was willing to save them. Granted, it would have been a financial risk, I understand that. Books, it has been said, are dying. In the world of mass media and Nooks and Kindles and visual over-stimulation, not as many people read books for simple recreation anymore. Why bother, when you could just buy the e-book on Amazon?

I, for one, adored BORDERS. The one in Turkey Creek was my favorite. I enjoy attending midnight premiers of movies, decking out in costume and enjoying the movie with the hard-core fans. After eating, we’d have hours to spend before the line even started, it’s 9pm on a weeknight, where else was there to go? Even in costume, people glanced but didn’t stare and there’s something kind of peaceful about being among your own people. I’d spend hours in BORDERS, perusing the isles, buying tasty beverages I could get from my own place of work for free, utilizing the free wi-fi to create literature of my own, browsing the graphic novels and hoping one day I’d be able to afford all the many titles that I wished to own. From time to time, I’d find something on clearance that I couldn’t pass up. You know, like a paper weight that was made out of glass and glowed in the dark. (I never said I was practical) I’ve gone to midnight book releases at that store, discovered new authors, bought beautiful notebooks that are now full of stories of my own, I bought my first Moleskin notebook there. I could spend the day just being there, writing, because there is something about that place, about any bookstore that fosters creative energy, ignites it, or at least it does for me.

I told a friend that they were closing and she said, “Oh no. I love that place, it’s a great place to hang out.” I felt my heart sink a little. I suppose that was a part of the company’s problem, it was a great place to hang out. I thought back on every excursion I took there. More times than not it wasn’t to buy something and I wasn’t alone in that. There were teenage girls looking at the young adult section, giggling over the puzzles and pencil holders that featured beautiful and unobtainable boys. There were grown men taking over entire tables in the cafe to write business proposals. There were students (usually medical) who sat for hours doing research and homework. There was a young man I knew who would go there and read books every week and never had any intention of buying them because he never had to.

So when I found out that they were closing their doors, I mourned. My little brother scoffed at my strange attachment to a corporation. It’s not so much the corporation as what the corporation was, what it stood for. It was a bookstore. I’d mourn if any bookstore was closing, much less one in which I spent so much time. I am a bookworm, I have been my entire life. I read Romeo and Juliet in third grade and even though I didn’t understand all of it, I could appreciate the beauty and magnificence of the story. I would read in class in fourth grade because I had read ahead and already knew what the teacher was talking about. (Yeah, I was one of those kids) I was scolded for doing so and because I told him that it wasn’t smart to discipline somebody for increasing their knowledge particularly when the subject that he was teaching on was something I had already read about extensively, he gave me detention and didn’t let me go into the gifted program since it required the student’s teacher to provide a recommendation. I found it highly ironic now, but then I was angry. He told me specifically that it was because I had been disrespectful by reading in class and had argued with him in front of the other students, not because I wasn’t qualified. Nice. It didn’t dissuade me from reading. So I have always had a soft spot for books and as a result for the vendors who sold them.

As with any ‘going out of business’ situation, there was a ‘going out of business’ sale. I went once a week. One particular trip I was able to procure a notebook and all of Shakespeare’s major plays in book form for under twenty dollars at a saving of seventy five dollars. I was beyond ecstatic about that. With each progressive visit, the shelves grew increasingly bare. The Seattle’s Best cafe was gone within a week. The glass partition that separated me from a particularly beautiful barista boy was gone but so, of course, was he. Each empty shelf stood like a sarcophagus paying homage to what once was. I paused among the people walking up and down the empty isles, searching silently. There were little huddles as they searched out something familiar, something friendly in the somethings that were already gone. I hing my head and chuckled, I knew this scene all too well. This was more than a sale. This was a wake.

So the pictures within this blog were taken the day after they closed. I went to visit one last time and anything that I recognized was gone and the inside was empty and barren. A place that had caused me so much happiness was now eerie and quiet. I peeked through the glass doors, carefully reading the quotes that I had almost forgotten were there. I had hoped that like my beloved Knoxville Pearl, BORDERS would pull up out of its nosedive and remain open, but it wasn’t to be. It broke my heart and in the corner of the window was a sign that said: Coming Soon: The Ham Store. I scoffed and fumed. That would be the story of my life, something I once adored gets replaced not by something similar or enjoyable, but by something I’d rather never step foot through the doors. I hate ham. I hate ham so much.

So now it’s over. BORDERS is gone. Mind you, directly after leaving Turkey Creek, I went over to Barnes and Noble and walked through the isles. They weren’t so different really and if I squinted just enough it was like being in BORDERS again. I promptly got a Barnes and Noble card and resolved that it was going to be all right. Maybe I was being overly sentimental, but maybe I’m not the only one. A girl next to me accidentally pulled out her BORDERS card as she was paying. I looked over as she blushed and she looked at me. I smiled sadly and she nodded, almost like she understood. I mourn BORDERS in my own way as does anybody. I’m not sure which stage I am in the cycle of grief, but I am pretty sure I am nearly to acceptance.

When the Towers Fell

It came upon me far more suddenly than I was expecting. That’s always the way it happens isn’t it? There are such significant events that impact our lives in ways that we cannot describe, and we swear to ourselves that we will remember, that we must remember. Then the day of commemoration comes upon us and we realize that it did so with our scarcely noticing. They say that each generation has an event that they will be able to remember with detail where they were when it happened, what they were wearing and how they felt about it. JFK’s assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the moon landing, all of these events are etched into the hearts and minds of those that experienced them. My generation has such an event and it is this event that we commemorate today; September 11, 2001, the day that the Towers fell.

It has been ten years. That is so surreal to me. It almost feels like it was yesterday and oh yes, I remember. Where were you when the Towers fell? Ten years ago I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school. I was such a dork back then, a nerdy and awkward pubescent girl who was too smart to be well liked. I was wearing jeans, hiking boots and a green shirt. We were sitting in my second period English class when a teacher from across the hall burst into our room, “They just flew a plane into the Trade Towers. Turn on your TV! America is under attack!” The woman ran to the next room and we all looked at the teacher, she looked scared. We were scared. As we turned on the TV, it was on ESPN, so we switched it to the closest news station. We didn’t say a word but watched the pillows of smoke and the looping film of the plane’s descent and the subsequent explosion as it collided with the first tower. One girl started crying because her uncle worked there and asked if she could leave and call her Mom. The teacher simply nodded and when the bell rang to signal the class change we just sat there looking at each other. The teacher’s voice cracked, “You should probably go to your next class.” We all got up from our seats and the halls were abuzz with everybody talking, those who hadn’t gotten the announcement heard now and we were all rushing to their next class. The TV was already on in my Economics class and Mrs. Bauman declared that though today was going to be a review day for a test we were going to have then next day, the test would be put off.

We wanted to cheer about it, any day a text was delayed was a good day, but not today. Cheering seemed like the opposite of what we should do. Mrs. Bauman muted the news for a brief second. “These images are probably going to be disturbing, if you don’t want to see them, you can call your parents and have them come and get you. Any of you can do that and it will not be counted against you,” she paused, “they are saying that another attack is probably going to happen and we are pretty high on the list of possible targets, so if you want to call your parents and have them get you, that is also fine.” Oak Ridge is nothing if not a target..for a lot of things. We watched in wonder as she turned the mute off. We watched the falling man and we watched the towers collapse. We watched the brave men and women of the NYPD and the NYFD as they fought to find survivors, to find hope. A friend turned to me, shaking her head, “Nothing is going to be the same after this. ” She was right.

While so many other people wanted revenge, wanted the people who did this to pay, I couldn’t help but think of all the kids whose Dads weren’t coming home, of the husbands whose wives wouldn’t be coming to dinner that night. It’s insane to think about it. That’s all you heard about for the next few weeks as the plane crashed into the towers again and again. It was nauseating after a while. In its own way, America has survived, Americans have continued on with their lives, but every year on this day we remember. We mourn those that we lost and we try to heal. Facebook and Twitter updates carry the commemoration. We visit the memorials all across the country. There’s one in Oak Ridge, right in front of the high school. A mangled piece of metal from the towers in the shape of a dilapidated cross. It’s been painted to keep it from rusting, but there it is. We pass by it and we remember. Where were you? Where were you when the Towers fell?