Business of Love

Inspired by attending the "Louder Than A Bomb" finals the other night featuring the best of Chicago's teen slam poets, I submit this to you as an experiment in storytelling style and form. Their fearlessness reminded me that sharing your innermost self with the world without apology can be powerful. 

You ask why we cannot be together. You will never understand it is because you are a bank and I am a candy store.

The candy comes in all colors and shapes and sizes. Treats that are tart and sour and sweet. Some that crunch, some that are gooey, some that are velvety smooth.

But I am not always a candy store. 

Some days I am a library, where the written word is my gospel. I’m only of interest to a select few: the very young, the very old, the frugal, the luddites, the outliers. But there is a discernible buzz that cuts through the library’s silence, the humming of reverence from those who choose to read. 

Some days I am a gas station, with people coming in and out to get what they need to move on. Some days I am a neighborhood bar, clamoring with the sounds of the jukebox and people telling stories with their hands. Smelling of sweat and whiskey, echoing with people enjoying each other’s company with the occasional interruption of making sure a lonely soul who’s had too many gets home safely.

You are a bank and you have always been a bank. I am comfortable at the bank because the bank is necessary and predictable. The bank opens at precisely 9 am and closes at 5 pm. I know what to expect from the bank; my paper numbers will be effortlessly transformed into currency. I trust the bank will take the dizzying array of digits involved in identifying my various accounts and credit and debit them correctly to keep my resources flowing. I feel a rush as the pert young teller counts back the bills to me with a sunny voice. She ensures the stack of paper presidents are all faced the same direction. I respect that the bank represents structure and responsibility; I can earn interest and I can borrow and I can save. I look to the bank to be my backbone, to keep me grounded and safe and secure.

You’ve been around so many other banks all of your life that it did not occur to you there were other options besides being a bank. You seem content with me not being a bank at first, in fact you seemed to find me to be a refreshing change. But you grew weary of seeing how many places I could be, and you became confused by the fact that I was something different every time you came to visit. This made you uneasy, it made question your decision to become a bank.

I suggest that although you are most certainly a bank, you can still change and grow. You could be open on Saturdays, perhaps. You could add on a drive through ATM. You could paint the walls or put in carpeting or play something other than classical music.  No, no, no, you tell me. You've always been a bank precisely this way, and it's always been fine. 

I understand your trepidation. I know because I failed at being so many places: a daycare center, a secretarial service, a modeling agency, a health club, a place of worship, a therapy practice, a marriage chapel. I tried to build each one, only to see them crumble and turn to dust. Our constructions are often met with opposition, or worse yet, with indifference. I saw you come alive with the sparks of possibility, only to see them extinguished by your fear.

Still I continue to diversify. Some days I am a nursing home, tending to the infirm. Some days I am an airport, with people hustling back and forth with determination and chaotic energy. Other days I am a yoga studio, warm and quiet, full of ohms and namastes.

I tried to be a bank for many years as I felt that’s what the world wanted me to be. Everyone told me to be a bank as it was safe and reliable. After decades of trying, I became a hospital. Full of disease and unrest, practicing triage to attend to the most serious problems first, with the smell of failure and antiseptic always heavy in the air.

You loved that I was not a bank until you didn’t. I wasn't required to be a bank with you, but you wanted someone from that same predictable, steady category, like a grocery store or a car dealership. You were threatened by all my variety, all of my choices. I loved being a candy store above all else, and it seems you feasted on my confections until you became ill. 

That’s when I became the corner store half a block from your work that you visit every morning, the one where the lady behind the counter smiles and has your coffee ready for you when you get to the register. She knows you like it with one cream and two sugars, just so. 

Until one Monday when you come to find that she is not there. She is sleeping late, relieved she does not have to concern herself with anyone's coffee but her own. She is not there because the store is not there. You do not understand how or why on this particular Monday you find the store shuttered; gone without warning or explanation. That is how abruptly I became a memory.

I now spend my days searching for those who can be an architecture firm full of creative plans for building the future, a music store ringing with joyful noise, a comedy club where magicians transform their pain into laughter. I must believe that people who can embrace all that I am on any given day will continue to find me and that they are willing to make an investment in the business of love.