Peace Sign with Multi-Colored, Jingling Ring

Time is strange. It acts only when you’re busy acting. It sits there staring back at you while you contemplate it, but the moment you turn around it gets up and moves everything around. When you turn back things look different. You either keep staring or you turn around again, this time curious about what will change next.

I hope some things stay the same, though. I hope to always know at least one person who will kiss my forehead at the same moment that I’m being a meany, despite or because of it.

I hope to always have a mountain of books I haven’t read yet.

I hope to always know people who regularly go out of their way for the good of another and think nothing of it.

I hope to always have a phone number to call at any time of the night. “Put on some tea, I like your kitchen better than mine.” “Okay.”

I hope to always be a close enough replica of someone who can make you laugh when your dog dies. Not because he died. But because you can still laugh.

I hope this bookstore will exist long after even I’m gone. Because if you’ve ever been in our bookstore, you know it’s not just a bookstore.

I hope our lives get better.

I hope we gather enough strength while they’re better to cope when they get worse.

I hope.

 

Gather everyone close, you, and when you hug each person, make sure you linger a little and memorize the fragrances that make up that body.

Do this for the joy of it today and the peace of it tomorrow.

 

Be Merry.

 

-Aida