Lessons, Blessings and Gifts
Max Clark with our old dog Moxie
This Saturday marks our 6th trip around the sun, although it feels more like we've been circling the full moon all these years.
Today we elected to lose the mask rule at Moxie, and let our staff breathe deeply for the first time in over a year. Many of our new folks have never shown us their faces. It is crazy to catch the occasional glimpse of someones face at lunch time when you've only known their eyes for so long. Feels like a little birthday present to ourselves. In fact just being here to tell the tale feels like a birthday present unto itself. Many restaurants didn't make the journey through the pandemic. I was wrought with fear for many months wondering if we could make the journey, like most of us I was thinking the journey would be a handful of months, not this enormous stretch of months leading into more months and years. Of course it is not really over either, but we are really over it. I'm planning on talking with my out loud voice like it is over in hopes that will help to make it so.
There has been so much growth and adaptation and resilience that I have witnessed over the past year. Our team, our employees, the people that you come to see each day, the folks waking up early to make the food, who stay late to wash the dishes, who come in on their days off to take their team out for tacos to connect with them. These folks are heroes. When this whole thing started we circled the wagons and asked if we all felt like we should push on and try to stay open through the pandemic. The team had concerns, comments and questions. Is it safe? Is it responsible? Is it stupid? We all decided that since we could, we should. And we did. Most of the team that we started the pandemic with is still working today. Many of them were new at that time, and they are still here today.
Our customers showed up in the cold rain and snow all winter long, waiting through lines and talking through plastic screens. If you could have know how nervous I was about the covid winter... Would you show up and deal with the weather conditions to get your coffee and croissant? We changed the orientation of our queue a million times, but you still found us. We kicked you out of our dining room, but you still came back.
The little old house on Main & Pine built in 1882 has now become a general store. Eggs, lasagna, flour, milk, pasta. I wonder if the old Louisville coal miners would have enjoyed our offerings. It's a real joy to collect the best local food and offer it up for retail purchase. That is going to stick with us forever.
A little over a year ago we quietly kicked our front door open in Boulder up north, just below where the Bus Stop apartments are. We get to giggle when newbies describe where their new apartment is: just north of Lee Hill, before you get to Wapo's. Yeah, we know where the Bus Stop is. Connecting with the old guard of Boulder who show up strong every day up there is a joy. Boulder has changed so much over the years, but somehow the wildness and wonder and beauty abounds way up there. I remember my first week in Boulder in 1994 skateboarding to Alfalfa's to buy an organic smoothie and thinking I must be in heaven. Boulder will always be special.
My family got Covid in January. It knocked us down. It really kicked my arse and left me in pajamas in the basement for 3 weeks, and then another 2 weeks when I got pneumonia. It was my first "adult time out" . I have not ever taken a month off for myself. Things shifted within me and I emerged from my month holiday a new man. It was perhaps the most profound "me time" I have ever had. I read an article in Elephant Journal this morning from Dango Rose of Elephant Revival about "living in the threshold of the in between" referencing a term "liminal space". "The term “liminal space” refers to a place between destinations that isn’t meant to be existed in as much as passed through. These transitional spaces can be sensitive and vulnerable times. Sometimes they can be moments of one’s day, and other times, weeks, months, or years of one’s life.
As we all pass through our own "liminal space" and work towards putting the pile of puzzle pieces back together, let's make it gorgeous. Let's make this new puzzle even more beautiful than the last.
"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing" - Arundhati Roy
If you've made it this far in my rant, I am impressed. I have a request now. Take a moment to write to me, and tell me what brought you through the pandemic? A new cat? An old banjo? A friend? A sourdough starer? I'd like to stitch these stories of customers and staff and family into a little book of sorts for us all to read and share. You can remain anonymous or not. Just shoot me a note. andy@moxiebreadco.com.
We will celebrate our sixth birthday this Saturday with a pizza party in Louisville on our new pizza oven.
It will be a fundraiser for the families of the Boulder shooting victims. $15 gets you a few slices of pizza and a beer or wine. Trace Bundy will be making cocktails, and we'll also have a cash bar. I think there will be music too.
You must buy a ticket online HERE
With Love, Light and Gratitude,
Andy Forrest Clark
I used to be such a chicken, but I am much stronger than that now.
Pippa on Saturday June 6 2015, opening day at Taste of Louisville
Bruce Cockburn sings us this beautiful notion
"If this were the last night of the world
What would I do?
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?"