Bigger Than the Inside

For non-Dr. Who fans, that's a play on the comment made about the Doctor's TARDIS. The blue police box the Doctor uses to travel the universe: Time And Realtive Dimension In Space. It's "bigger on the inside".

But, my mental imagry is a mixture of the TARDIS and something or someone who is more than what you see. There's something about the space around them. Their energy. What they put out in the world.

Have you ever met a person whose entire being seemed to defy physics?

Photo by Snapwire

A gal I knew back in Columbus, Ohio, who recently and suddenly passed away, was barely 4 feet tall but you'd swear she was so much taller. Her personality was bigger than her little, tattooed body. She was her sense of humor and her bright smile. She was her seemingly limitless ability to give to others though she herself worked numerous jobs. She was the delicious food she cooked, the buttons she made, her art, her kids, her heart. She was and always will be the energy named Shea Wallace.

My mother, when she was in her late 60's and living in the assisted living facility, was somehow able to push against me and resist when I tried to get to her step forward or stand anywhere other than where she was standing. Her doctors commented on her strength. My mother became more than just her body and her mind. Her brain was confused with dementia. Her body was still strong and persisted. My mother, Kaye Michele Darling.

My little tuxedo cat that went missing this past December was only 7 pounds but when she entered the room she filled it. She talked a lot, had very strong opinions, and walked like the owned the plae. How a little being could fill me and the house with so much joy was a beautiful mystery that I never once took for granted. My best little girl, Sera Bellybutton Miceli.

It's probably unfortunate to use examples of people who have passed (cats are people, too) but there is that saying that the brightest candle burns for half the time, or something like that. On my walk around the neighborhood this morning, these three came to mind as examples of the physics dilemma related to the wine cafe.

This post about entities that died too soon may become prophetic, only time will tell, but in the whirl of concern about how to beef up the number of customers that come in around lunch, how to make enough to pay the people who I need to employ to make the shop successful, and how to not burn out while remaining authentic, I decided to stop and refocus.

I needed to stop and refocus.

Community. Creativity. Conversation.

The ethos of our wine cafe. The words against which we base all of our business decisions.

At first, it was how I chose my wine distributors. It was important we were all on the same page and had a simlilar vibe. Then it was how I selected the wine. The story behind the growers, how they made the wine, why they made the wine.

Then it informed how I selected the artwork for the shop and the artists. That, in turn, inspired the events we've decided to host.

When I hired Essie, I talked her ear off for two hours about these three words the first day she came in, and I've made decisions about staffing based on this ethos ever since. At our first meeting in August, as a team of six community-minded, creative, and interesting women, we dug into these words and agreed they were exceptionally important, now more than ever.

As a group, we agreed that this little wine cafe was bigger than its footprint. It was more than us, more than the walls, and far far more than just the wine. When I signed the lease, it was a wine bar. By the time I opened, I began calling it a wine shop. Now she's become a wine cafe. And truly she's a wine cafe with a soul. A purpose. An ikigai. A reason for being. A reason for opening our doors in the morning.

When new people walk through the doors, they stop and look around. At the artwork, at the books, at the glass door with our wines-by-the-glass written on it.

Wow, this is gorgeous, people say.

And they walk farther in.

I smile when I hear our regulars telling the new customers about the bar that we built out of the doors from the hotel that used to be upstairs. They point to the events board and tell them about the wine tastings and language meet-ups, quiet creatives, and "Oh look, they've got a chess night now, too! And come look at all the wines they've got back here. They're all natural and delicious." I hear them explain about orange wines and the benefit of the wines being low-intervention. These things they learned that caused them to become regulars, they pass on to the next new regulars.

Our customers are our best advertisers. Word of mouth means everything.

But the thing I love the most is when people come in and they say, "Oh. I love the energy. It's peaceful. Relaxing." I love it when people feel the energy that we've put into this place and that we infuse it with every day.

And still, there's so much more.

Community. Creativity. Conversation.

After the first week, I knew we had created something that was bigger than my original vision. Maybe that's because it was never only about wine - and was certainly never about food. Food and wine help, don't get me wrong, but this wine cafe quickly grew into something I could not have foreseen. And I'm finding that the struggle I feel every day and the issues that keep me up at night are primarily because my initial vision is the limiting factor. I need to get out of its way. This place has an energy that is growing. You can feel it when you come in. I mean, you're the ones that have added to it, after all.

The first several days of August have been slow, though lunch times have almost always been slow. As the owner, it's obvious that this would cause me some mild panic. "We have to promote lunch time! Tell people they can have their team meetings here! Let them know we have free wi-fi! Don't work from home, work from here!" I feel myself screaming into the ether, frantic, hoping people will flock in droves!

But who the hell is drawn to a maniac? To frenetic energy? To simmering chaos?

Here again, I'm limiting the energy of the place to lunch and meetings. I can feel the shop sigh and sit there patiently, waiting for me to stop being a whirling dervish.

"Are you done yet?" she asks with a gentle, goddess smile. "Can we do what we're really meant to do?"

~I wipe the sweaty hair away from my face with the back of hand and steady myself, panting ~

"Uh. Yes?"

Bigger plans are scary. There's so much unknown. There's no template or project plan or profit projection for being more than just a business. There's a risk in opening any small enterprise and even more of a risk when the "product" isn't tangible.

Community. Creativity. Conversation.

This wine cafe has already drawn strangers together. I can think of three sets of new-found friends who swapped phone numbers while sitting at the bar. They left to go to dinner together at Hotel Petersburg. They hang out together outside of the shop and then come back to share another glass of wine.

People from Petersburg, people from Richmond, Dinwiddie, DC, the Carolinas, Montana, California, France, Germany, Ohio, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Vermont, Utah...a rainbow of skin colors, a broad spectrum of beliefs. They come in. They feel the energy. They smile and chat and drink a glass of wine or a cup of coffee or a bottle of kombucha. Or just water.

The world is in this little wine cafe, sitting within these walls, sharing thoughts and ideas. Reading, drawing, chatting. Breaking bread, clinking to one another's health.

When I was born, as my mother tells the story, the nurse handed me to my mom and said, "She's strong-willed", and there's no denying that. But then she added, "She's a child for the world." I'm told my father didn't understand what she meant, but my mother got it. It may sound a bit self-congratulatory to point it out, but when an idea becomes bigger than the creator, the creator needs to step back and let it be. My mom let me become who I am, and I need to let this wine cafe become what it will be. Because, the thing is, this shop isn't mine. It's ours. Yours and mine. In this place, because of this place, we can do great things. Positive things. Things for the community, with creativity, through conversation.

Now, this isn't to say that I won't stop fretting about finances and losing sleep over whether enough people show up to any given event. I'll still promote all these things because, as it turns out, social media works.

But I need to release the ethos of the wine cafe to the Universe. It's bigger than me, than my vision, and the walls that support the wine shelves and the artwork.

Here, at Burgundie's Wine Cafe, we're doing good for the community, bringing different people together in simple ways. We're encouraging creativity of thought, through art and through the senses. We're promoting conversation. Talking to eachother is the only way we can find our commonalities. Talking about it -whatever it is - is the only way we'll dig through the muck and come out on the other side, together.

Come in for more than just wine and sandwiches.

Come in for something more than that.

Come in to be a part of the community, creativity, and conversation.