IMMORTALS ONLY.  I’m wondering if I can fit the sign on our already cluttered front door.  Lifetime commitment required should be added there, too.

Today is taking me by surprise.  Sap Bush Saturday is when I step lightly, dance in the kitchen, shout joyfully to my customers.

But I want to run from here.  If Bob or the kids utter the name Ron, my eyes automatically fill with tears.  Ron’s daughters stop by to leave a photo on a shelf for me of him, eyes twinkling as he sits out on our front patio.  Saoirse and Ula place his coffee mug in front of it, along with several packets of sugars.  I can’t walk by it without crying. 

So I stick to business — stirring pancake batter, flipping eggs, frying burgers.  Corbie, Tom and Will take the last remaining plexiglass-boothed seats at the bar.   The patio out front fills up with intrepid regulars — Pat and Jim, Nick and Chris, Sarah and Dave.  They come with down vests, scarves and hats now.  Masking is definitely not an issue.  It keeps their faces warm.  I’m seeing their plans unfold.  I keep hanging out the open flag, they’ll keep coming.  Even if I don’t have indoor tables any longer.  

I know what they’re bringing us this week is support — support for our business in the face of this pandemic, support for our family as we battle the sense of loss we’re feeling over Ron’s passing last week. But all I feel is pain.  Their presence is like a knife in my gut.  This is the first Saturday we have to acknowledge that Ron and Jeanne aren’t going to come in the door and start raising hell.  Ron’s dead.  Jeanne’s so shattered, she can’t bring herself to come in and sit amidst all the memories.  And every time I look out at all those regulars, I dread losing any more of them.  I need them here.  And I hate needing them here.

This is not business.  This is the ruthless love and affection that has defined my family’s livelihood from the get-go.  And right now, it’s a liability.  I want to shutter the doors of this place, shoo them all away, and not follow them through their lives week by week.  If I do this,  I don’t get to hear about their victories, discoveries and pleasures….But I don’t have to worry about them, either.  They can fade to distant memories before it’s their time to slip away from this earth.  I can ameliorate future suffering that way.

But, of course, this is a business.  And if I’m going to keep paying the taxes on the building and the taxes on the farm and the taxes on my house, then there needs to be a revenue stream.    

Business books counsel entrepreneurs to identify their ideal customer.  So it’s time to clean house, re-brand and bring in the new ideal customers.  

“I’m not serving anyone else who expects to die some day,” I announce from the back kitchen as Saoirse passes me an espresso shot.  She rolls her eyes.

“No more mortals!”  I tell Ula when she comes back to the kitchen.  She shakes her head and hugs me.

“New business model!”  I tell Tom and Will at the bar.  “If you’re planning to die, you’re no longer welcome to eat here.”

“I think you might experience a reduction in your revenue stream,” Tom counsels.  Then he orders a slice of cake.

Corbie stares me down with her Gypsy gaze through her plexiglass shield.  She leaves her tarot cards in her bag.  “I’m sending you a Samhain meditation,” she tells me.  She know’s we’re big on Samhain in our house.  We use it as a time to give thanks for all the animals who feed us and support our livelihood.  We use it as a time to commune with those who have gone before us. But Halloween’s still a couple weeks out.  “You need it.  Now,” Corbie says as she gets up to pay her bill.  

My quips are failing to temper my emotional state.  Bob advises me to stuff hankies in my face mask to catch the snot and tears.  As soon as we close, I bolt out the door, drive home and hide under the covers with the dogs.  

I remain there until supper, vacantly stream a couple videos with Bob and the kids, then go back to hide under the covers.

But the pre-dawn arrives, and I cannot convince my body to keep sleeping.  I’ve grown used to these quiet dark hours, and my body craves the conscious solitude…Even if it means facing sadness.

So I go downstairs, pull on my headphones and listen to Corbie’s meditation.  Dang.  It’s spooky.  But it suits my mood.  In it, she guides my mind down into the womb of the earth, asks me to confront ghost after ghost from my past until, at last, I’m brought to face to face with death herself.  There, the meditation instructs me to visualize kneeling before her and laying my head in her lap.   In her lap!?

But I do it.  There, for the first time in two weeks, I begin to feel peace.    I don’t know why, exactly, except that I sense that my love of community doesn’t end in this realm.  It runs deep into the earth, helps the ground to stay nourished and fertile, and cycles down (or up, or out, whatever the direction might be) to the afterlife, where it readies itself for rebirth.  But just as farming has required me to develop equanimity and gratitude for the passage of  life to sustain life; so too does operating a community business require me to accept death as part of the work.  The only permanence in this business is the impermanence.  But the love and connection that we form vibrates out and cycles through all the realms.  The worst thing about death is the fear that surrounds her.  Release the fear, and the despondence abates, and the light of love shines through.  I don’t need to hide from the realities by ceaselessly laboring to a state of exhaustion, or transforming my business to eliminate personal connection.  I need to draw breath, do the work, keep love on the menu, and stop fearing the pain of loss.

I still cannot walk past Ron’s photo without tears.  But I’m practicing so that I have a better handle on it this week.  And in that practice, I stop and stare him down.  My friend.  My customer.  My family. And at the same time that I confront my sorrow, I visualize death herself.  And I visualize resting my head in her lap once more.  This is what Samhain and All Souls and Halloween are all about.  Getting to know death a little better.  If I can do that, I will grow.  And in that growth, all customers, for me, will become immortal.

Special note:

All right, here’s the thing.  2020 has Brought so much loss all over the planet.  I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t been touched this year.  

Our family has always celebrated Samhain on October 31.  It is a day when we give thanks for the animals who give their lives for our health, and it is a day when those who have gone before us are believed to come back for a visit.

This year Samhain falls on a Sap Bush Saturday.  We would like to use that day at the cafe to honor the dead.  We will have a Samhain altar set up there.  If you are in town and you wish to add a photo or artifact of your year to the Samhain altar, please come by and do so.  All prepared food sales from that day will be donated to Ron’s family to help offset their medical expenses.  

If you’re interested in exploring Corbie’s Samhain meditation, you can find it here.