File 18 /
Jane: So how are things going with you in this new year?
Julia: …Well I’m coming down the other side of the mountain, kind of. But, yeah, I’m feeling hopeful, energized, just thinking about what I need to do in life and trying not to let my normal way of thinking get in the way, because I can’t be in the normal way of thinking… everything has to open up to a new horizon, so to speak. So that’s kind of what I’m trying to do.
Jane: Well, this is the time. It seems right, it’s either that, it’s serendipitously come as the time as sort of the greater light and the hopeful season, or the season is coming and your mindset is changing. Who knows which, but it seems like a nice thing.
Julia: Good timing.
Jane: Well, I’ve never seen where you live, but just knowing about your heat issues and then when you were so sick whatever it was, after New years or Christmas, it was just like, Oh my god. The picture in my mind was just so dark and grim.
Julia: Yeah, well, it was kind of limiting. It felt limiting. But I’m trying to push back a little bit, and figure out where to go from here.
Jane: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you’ve got more reserve in your … just your self health-wise to be able to do that. So that sounds good. And it can be something to feel excited about too I think, probably. ‘What am I going to do?’ and finding your new path.
Julia: Exactly. And all these things are kind of coming together, conspiring to really push me to that cliff edge and I can’t sort of hang back anymore. I have to go forward!
Jane: Yeah! Can you say what that is?
Julia: Well, I had been teaching… you know, Dan had taught typography at a nearby college and he taught at night so we tried to do our business during the day and he would do that at night. And at one point I did that for a while too, I taught illustration there, and that came and then they didn’t have that course anymore. But Dan’s continued, and when Dan got sick I co-taught the course with him in 2012, the spring of 2012, which was quite scary for me because it was just… I had sat in on his class once. But to just suddenly decide to be at the head of the classroom teaching was intimidating. But I had done the typography here for 30 years also, so it was a challenge. But he was there. He stayed in the back of the classroom; he was sort of the guest lecturer and I would go through the regular class materials. And then when Dan died I said, ‘Boy! I need to make an income…’ And so I asked them if they would let me teach the course because —well, thank goodness, I had taught it! Otherwise I would have been out and in a fearful place of loss. And they said yes, and I taught that semester in the fall and then two classes in the spring. And again this past fall. So I taught a total of three, plus the one with Dan. Four semesters.
Jane: That’s a lot!
Julia: It is! And then that ended. It just ended. Because this semester I was not continuing. I don’t know if I told you that already.
Jane: You did mention that! Why?
Julia: Because, well, you know… Dan taught two different courses. And he was very well-liked, and he was a vital part of that department, interestingly enough, so when Dan died they suddenly said to themselves, ‘we have to advertise for a new person, we can’t have a big hole in the department like this.’ So they advertised, and they got someone last fall. So I was teaching my last semester and that was their first semester, so there was an overlap. I only had a few people in my last class. I think they’re getting less students there because I think the baby boom offspring population is shifting so there are less students.
Jane: And also, not to be too practical, it’s like… college is so expensive for people and there’s such a ‘I’ve got to come out of this with something to either get me a job or get me on the path to a job.’ ‘I can’t afford to dally in the arts.’ I mean it’s horrible to say, but…
Julia: Right! Well it was Graphic Design, so that’s a career…
Jane: Yeah, it is definitely. Actually, that’s a good one.
Julie: But the department a couple years ago started limiting the amount of people they allowed in the program, so that may have been a bit of an error.
Jane: Ha-ha. Well, we don’t want to go down that path…
Julia: Yeah, because they were making it harder for people to get in. But what the end result is, I think, is that there are fewer students in that department now and, therefore, there are less people taking certain classes. And so the new guy that they hired, which wasn’t infringing on my class whatsoever, his class didn’t fill up. His class got cancelled, and the first thing they do when you’re tenure-track is they give you any class that is available, (from an adjunct) that is filled. And mine was a prerequisite (Dan’s typography class, that had become mine), so that, of course, is going to fill. Especially since it was a really small class the previous semester. Kids apparently didn’t get informed they needed to take it and then this semester it was like ‘Bam!’ 17 students needed that class. So it was hard, it was full. And so he took the class. They called me up and said ‘We’re so sorry, this is the way it goes.’ Corporate academia. And so it’s like, “Oh!’ I’m suddenly in a whole new place…” I panicked for two days. It felt like somebody punched me in the stomach for two days, because I taught two classes (one in the fall and two in the spring) and it was the income I had to make ends meet, because the shop has not been able to run fully without Dan. I had not reformulated a way to make money yet, really.
Jane: So you’re out kind of hanging…
Julia: I’m hanging! I’m at the edge of the cliff, just pushed over the edge. But, after two days of panicking and feeling fearful it transformed into this feeling of “okay.” I understood why it was happening; it was happening because I have to be pushed to the cliff, otherwise I would just be riding the easy wave. And so I know that I’m supposed to be doing Golgonooza now. Don’t wait; don’t keep floating on this other half cloud, half doing and half not doing. It’s all or nothing right now. So, strangely enough, I’m calm, not afraid.
Jane: That’s so good.
Julia: Yeah. I don’t know why. I do know it’s because I have to do it and it’s either do it or go get some other kind of employment. But this is what I really want to do so it’s pushing me to figure it out.
Jane: Well! So? You’re happy to be… it’s great to be in a place where you can be calm about it and not panicked and not… well, all the things that easily could have happened I suppose, for any of us.
Julia: And so… If I review all the stuff lost… I’ve lost Dan, I’ve lost therefore the recent Golgonooza business, and then I’ve lost the back-up business, and then I lost my heat! Ha-ha!
Jane: I know! It’s sort of a metaphor for, ‘Okay! Alright, let’s kick you one more time, but let’s see what kind of stamina you really have…’
Julia: Yeah! It’s like losing everything, but not. In a way I’m really lucky, you know, some people have bad things happen where they really just lose everything. Not that I haven’t in a way, by losing Dan I’ve sort of lost my past life. But there’s a whole foundation that hasn’t been lost.
Jane: Right, and that’s what all those years gave you, I think, because of what you both invested. You both invested well. And that’s what a lot of people don’t have; they have no security in relationships or family or friends or jobs, you know, it all collapses. They’re just constantly standing on the edge of thin ice. Which is giving out from under. You’ve got that foundation even if you don’t have the answers or the plans in place. But you could believe in yourself I guess. Know that you can do it. And you will.
Julia: Yeah! So the ice has water that I can swim through in a way as opposed to unknown territory. There is a whole unknown territory though, it’s like the transition between earth and sky almost, it’s like “okay, well… there’s always this meeting of these two things and I just have to move into this next realm almost.” And so, I’m trying to keep my senses open for what it is because I was reading whenever there’s an ending, a major ending, there’s beginnings all around us. And I’m trying to listen for them. Because sometimes we get into habits… and my habits from the past are the things I have to really work with … that I’m used to doing it that way. These new things are all things that I’m not used to at all and I don’t know what to do but I know that this is where I’m at. It’s not like not knowing anything, it’s like “okay, I know this is where I’m starting and I know I’ve never done this before.”
Jane: Right, and yet I still keep having this sense that it’s all new, with some kind of security, and I think it’s that foundation that you’ve created for yourself.
Julia: Yeah. And Dan and I, interestingly enough, because we did that crazy business that everybody said, “Oh you guys can’t do that” and we did it together as a team and it was the only way we could do it was as a team; we supported each other completely. I feel like now that sort of spirit of “We can do this! We can do this through any odds” is one of the things that’s buoying me up because I’ve been there through no money, through weird stuff like eating pasta from the pantry… Have I told you the story where every year we ran out of money? It was pasta month… and I feel like, “Well! Hey, I’ve been there, done that… It’s not the end of the world!”
Jane: Exactly! I think it’s knowing that, too, and that comes from having lived life long enough, … or some wisdom or something, and not going through… ‘This is all new territory to me – but at the same time I’ve been through other kinds of hard times and this is how we got through them – this is what I can do now’ – Kind of a belief. I guess its just some sort of belief in your own ability, your own strength, your own kind of knowing who you are. But I guess, what’s the alternative? You could just lie down on the floor and just wallow in your misery, but what good is that? Also, the floor is too cold!
Julia: Yeah! And the background of thirty years of that and then losing Dan and having to be in that place for two or three months where it was all slipping… and actually in a way it was all slipping before that because Dan was starting to get ill and there were points in time where I was glimpsing things that I could see danger on the horizon; I was intuitively glimpsing the future. But we held it together, and actually we held it together as a team. We never gave up and mourned and wailed… we kind of held it together right until the very end. Unfortunately the tough part about that was we never kind of admitted that it was over… but in a way it makes me have this total sense right now, and I have had it since Dan died, that it’s not entirely over. That there’s almost this sort of physic sense of the partnership continuing.
Jane: Well I think that it makes sense! I mean it has to be one of the strongest links that you had in your life!
Julia: Yeah it was.
Jane: And of course things changed radically, but it doesn’t mean that that got taken away. I mean that was something you kept building on… in a way your job is it take a hold and keep on with it. It’s kind of like, wouldn’t Dan do the same?
Julia: Yeah. I think about that sometimes and the energy in this place,
was never about just Dan and me. It was always this energy of what two beings on the planet could create by moving beyond all odds and bringing in the spirit of creativity and almost a kind of magic of some sort, where there’s pushing beyond the mundane of the world we live in, really, to believe that we create the world that we live in and have the feet on the ground sense that we can get better with a craft; we can make these things and they’re not totally impossible dreams, but dreams that are within our reach. And we did that. And I think that remains! It’s so interesting for me because one of the things about not being able to be here while I’ve had some heat problems is I miss it here. I said to a friend of mine, “It’s like an old friend, this place…” It strengthens me in a way. There’s an energy, a palpable energy here.
Jane: Right. And it’s an energy that you both, well I don’t know if you create the energy but the work that you did together, who you were together, helped to bring it to this place and imbued it… and of course you would want to be back; that’s where you get your strength. Your energy is from all that you guys did, so it is a continuous.. more than a thread.. it may have seemed like it was broken, but it wasn’t broken, before it knitted itself back again.
Julia: Yeah, it’s just transformed, interestingly. And in a way what I feel lately is I have to honor that energy, by doing things, but trying to figure out how to make it work, how to get some young people here to study and to sort of spark that energy. And remembering that this is a cycle, it’s like the cycle of the seasons… this cycle of renewal, that all of us can get in touch with. When I first met Dan he would always be playing the radio, we had music on that was rock, rock and roll, and it was always playing and it was always energizing and we would just work and Dan would do things like write a poem the night before, and that next day he would go in and just go to the cases of type and just start setting that poem. And there it was, it was just made into a physical form; he’d print it and would be just this sort of fluidity and ease, never like this sort of ponderous thing, like ‘Oh I have to make some incredible design here.’ He would just do it! And it was such an inspiration, such a light-hearted fluidity. And that was in Boston. And he had many students. He told me once, he had seventy students at one time, and two of whom remained, really really connected and have done that for all their lives. And that was Mark Olsen and myself. And Mark is still doing it also, he’s down in North Carolina. And so that idea of having students come and having it be playful and having music play and never being ponderous is what I want to do. And I’m saying, “Well what would Dan do?” And that’s what he would have done! And I’m saying, “Okay, Julia! Start Again!”
Julia: Yes.
Jane: So it’s just part of that. Of course that should continue. And that’s exciting!
Julia: And every time I talk to young people they say, “Oh! I would love to do that!” And I know I have to try to actually formulate something and get them here and see it through. It seems like that’s the stage for me and even in mini steps that’s the stage for me: to get people here and fill the shop with people’s hearts and minds.
Jane: Good! And that creative energy. That’s good, that makes sense.
Julia: A friend of mine in Burlington, VT just emailed me recently and I was talking about what I wanted to do and this heat thing and he said, “why don’t you come to Burlington at some point, and teach a class up here! We could set it up and you could do a book-binding class to start!” And I had to think about it but I said, “Yeah, that’s a great idea! I think I should do that!”
So I’m going to do that sometime and I’m going to spend the next few weeks figuring out what exactly, step-by-step, what I would teach… try to get it formulated in my mind. Even try to do parts of it. But yeah, it’s like jump right over the ponderous and jump right into the actual pond!
Jane: (Laughing) Might as well! That’s so great! You know, the weather is warming up and the ice going to melt and it will be time to jump in that pond. With frogs and all those little fish that have been burrowed away in the mud all winter down at the bottom not moving… back to motion… back to energy! That’s so great, it’s very exciting to hear this!
Julia: I have really positive feelings about stuff. I’m not feeling down. But I think beyond that I’m just starting to see a little glimmer of where to go and how to let doors open.
Jane: Yup. A direction, a path, a way… one foot forward. The next follows and you set off with more energy down a path. Oh, that’s so good, I’m glad to hear it!
And at this point it almost seems ridiculous to even ask about the heating system, but I know that you told me it was kind of off your back and into the hands of the people that actually installed it in the first place? For them to deal with, whoever these people are that will not seem to stand behind their product.
Julia: Yup. That’s a real conundrum of a certain sort because Dan and I… you know, this is a fairly good-sized building… the shop actually has no insulation… something we never got around to. And we kind of tried to stop-gap the cost of fuel which was really becoming somewhat preventative of our being able to continue as a business because it was always a minimal income business…and as the price of fuel goes up when you make the same year after year after year, if not less, then it’s like, “wow!” Everything going up starts to make you wonder if you can continue.
Jane: Especially if you don’t have a way to bring in more income from another place.
Julia: Right… so we were worried about that and we were trying to remedy that. So I just have to reboot that remedying. It will take a lot of rethinking and reworking, but it’s okay. I’m not afraid of that, either.
Jane: Nope! That’s just work.
Julia: Yeah, I think stuff like that happens in the universe. It’s like this impersonal nature of little mini disasters… like having your tooth break…
Jane: It’s just stuff… just stuff…
Julia: Yeah, you can’t let it completely devastate you.
Jane: Exactly… because then you become inert and you can’t do the work that you need to do.
Julia: Right, the weight of the world gets heavier and heavier.
Jane: Yeah, it makes you just want to lie down and go to sleep.
What is the fuel that is in that furnace?
Julia: It’s like wood heat. A wood pellet boiler. But now I’m using oil; I’ve been using oil because I have oil as well.
Jane: Oh, so you have an oil burner but you were primarily using the wood pellets?
Julia: We had two different kinds of systems, yeah. And one system failed, but I do have wood stoves and I have to go light my wood stove downstairs but I’m not perfect with wood stoves; I have to get better at it. I work and then I forget it and it goes out.
Jane: It’s a job and it’s got to get integrated into your day.
We use our use stove; a fireplace-woodstove insert and it’s a great little furnace. And it isn’t our one source but, you know I can see on the days that my husband isn’t home… he’s better at just maintaining that fire. I can certainly do it and if he weren’t here I would be all over it, because it’s sort of cause and effect. Its right here in the living room so its not like I have to go very far to find it. I get in the kitchen and get distracted by something so sometimes I just set the timer and when that goes off I need to go over and check the fire again.
Julia: Oh, that’s a good idea!
Jane: Yeah, you must get so deeply into your work, my god… hours could pass and you might not even remember that you were hungry!
Julia: Oh yeah!! I have a bad habit with that… [laughing]
Jane: It’s a little trick that is only as good as the person that remembers to turn on the timer though! [laughing]
I can always come up with a good idea… it doesn’t always mean that I’m going at following through with my own plan.
Julia: [Laughing] I’ll have to try the timer thing!
Jane: We do what we need to do… But! You know what? It’s the end of January, Groundhog Day is around the corner, we’re halfway to the spring equinox, you know? And it just means more sun, more passive heat that’s going to be there. I think we’ve broken the back of winter. You know, what ever cold weather comes our way is not going to be sustained, we’re going to feel more days when the heat is inside just because of the sun.
And boy, talk about the rising tide…”A rising tide floats all boats” or whatever it is! floats our moods and our energy. I feel hopeful and you sound like you do too.
Julia: I do. I do… and you know there are parts of winter I love. And even as it starts to wane I cling to that time where you have this quiet sort of reflective thing which is so wonderful and I try to make sure I don’t miss it so its like, “OK, don’t forget, Julia!” This is that wonderful time where you can just sit in and work on paper projects or something.
But, yeah. I am. I’m doing okay. I’m feeling positive and I’m taking one little tiny step forward. And I want to teach a class and then I guess I’m going to try and do one here eventually but it may not be until the warm weather. So this idea of doing one somewhere else instead of having to feel stymied by the heat situation I’m just like, “OK, yeah, alright!”
Jane: The Burlington idea you mean?
Julia: Yeah, just keep having classes anyway!
Jane: I feel like there are people around who look for that. My daughter went to the Putney school and she took one of their summer programs… a very basic level of binding that they offered at the time and she just loved it! What you can do just over a weekend… it’s just fun! It’s really fun to discover those things! She’s always talked about that… I mean she’s going into nursing but she still loves whatever her art things are and talks about, “Oh wouldn’t it be fun to do that for a weekend?” You know, with other people, and the energy, and somebody who can take you somewhere. Why not?
Julia: Yeah! So that’s my challenge … is to hopefully be… there’s always the work to be done around that stuff to make sure that you’re getting people engaged, you’re challenging them enough, and you know… all that stuff. So that’s the thing I have to start to think about.
And the other thing is there’s a student in California who is part of a school… I think its called Vestia… that has special programs, she’s an eighth grader, it’s like a Putney school kind of thing. And the students get mentored and they do some project that lasts the whole year and there’s a student that wants to learn typography. And I got an email saying does anybody know someone who would like to help this student? And I said to myself, “this may be one of those little tiny things that you hear… little movements that in it of themselves you might think well, I don’t have time for that, but then on the other hand I said, wait a minute! Maybe this is a movement that could connect me to that school, could get me more work… I thought it was in Northampton and then I found out it was in California. So I would be working on Skype with the person! But that would be good for me, I think. I haven’t done Skype before but I’ve seen people use it…
Jane: Yeah! I mean why not? There are so many ways… that’s in so many ways the way of the world!
Julia: It would challenge me to keep up with technology! And what young people are moving with. Because if I want to teach young people I need to be moving at the same speed and level that they are in terms of technology. So even though I can teach them this other world, I have to be able to do that too.
Jane: Which, what I find remarkable is… Do you know Lisa McCormick? She’s a singer and song writer?
Julia: I think I’ve heard of her, yes.
Jane: I’m sure you have, she’s been around for many years. She’s very wonderful. But I was in a writing group with her for a while but she has, over the past ten years, been doing some very serious guitar teaching online! Over Skype. And I thought, how can you really teach an instrument that way when you aren’t right with the student, and yet I think she’s had a good business going!
Julia: Good! Yeah…
Jane: You know? Why not!
Julia: I think it’s something that’s a new opening of technology that might have its advantages then maybe the student might work with someone in actual closeness… there’s a place for both I guess.
Jane: it’s almost like doing those college kinds of things where people have like one weekend a month they come together yet in-between they’re kind of doing their own work independently or your students come to you once a month to be hands on all together. And then in-between you’re doing the Skype or whatever. I think its just being open to the possibility and the creative ways that all sorts of people are doing. That is exciting! Good for you for feeling open to all of that and wanting to do it!
Julia: Yeah! I don’t know if I have everything she’s looking for because she wants to do some type design and that wasn’t my specialty, that was Dan’s, but I figured I’m going to just open the door up and see what happens; communicate with her and see what we can do.
Jane: Yeah! Exactly! I think that’s terrific. Hey! Next time we talk, or last time we really talked which was maybe two weeks ago, you had talked about wanting to do a talk where you recorded it for yourself as you tell it to me. I’m interested in doing that going forward if you’re still interested.
Julia: Yes! Me too! Because we could do a thing where it’s conversations with Jane Noyes and Julia Ferrari.
Jane: Yeah! The other thing, this just occurred to me, in time if and when you’re up and ready to do it… that’s probably a great way to do a Skype thing! Do you Skype at all now or FaceTime?
Julia: No. I have to learn how to do it.
Jane: And don’t ask me! I will say in our household, my daughter was in the South Pacific for three months and our friends and neighbors got us onboard. It’s very easy to do once you’re set up to do it. So I see that once things are in place the ease in which you can use that process.
Julia: Yeah, I’m going to learn. My friend in Burlington, he’s like 35 and very tech-savvy so he will teach me. He and his wife are really tech-savvy.
Jane: Yes! Somebody who grew up with it; didn’t have to learn it after they were an adult.
Julia: Yes, exactly. But yeah I would love to do that! I’m taking notes and things and even transcribing a little bit now, but I think that maybe what we could do is start putting little snippets of things on the blog because sometimes I don’t know what to put on the blog and when I go away and I go on a special trip where I’m doing type travels, that’s really easy to do, I just talk about what I did every day.
Jane: Sure, but when it’s just your every day at home it might be different.
Julia: Yeah, it is. So I’m thinking why not put some of these conversations down and maybe selected parts of it where we talk about vision and put that down, and I can just transcribe it and have it be “Conversations with Jane Noyes and Julia Ferrari” or something.
Jane: Yeah! And the thing is when I get my act together to look at your blog… to look at other peoples work it’s easier for me to have questions from the common woman on the streets so that I can ask more either for elucidation or more depth or something.
Julia: Yeah! It’s important to have questions coming. It’s just like having an interview. That’s what we’re doing, we’re interviewing just like you would go interview an artist about their work or a person talking about their history. You need to have the two sides so someone can ask the questions and stimulate the conversation.
Jane: Yeah! Oh yeah. Because the conversation could just go forever and ever and ever. You know? Because there are always more questions and always other paths to head down.
Julia: Yeah. And that’s the other thing, I’m trying to keep that little thread going of a blog and what kind of things would interest people and writing for Vermont Views and all these little things. My philosophy is all these little things that are just moving as threads can come together at some point to some kind of bigger weaving.
Jane: Yeah! I sort have this vision of all these little parts of some kind of a machine and they all get into place and are rolling, and moving to keep this machine going. And it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. And its energy and action.
Julia: Yeah, so maybe I’ll try that and transcribe a little tiny bit this week. And sometimes, like you said, two weeks ago we were starting to talk about things that were actually about the life of Dan and I together and that is interesting too. Like this week we talked about moving forward and there are times to talk about the past, too.
Jane: Oh yeah. It’s all a part of the whole thing. Also you never know, I would guess, with the blog who is going to find it interesting. Or for what reason they find it interesting. And for you it may be your process but somebody else may find it inspirational for who knows what reasons. That’s one of the exciting things I think, about our world and communication these days.
Julia: Yeah, I agree. I think, I hope, that’s what it would be … that people would look at it and — just like when someone looks at a piece of art and sees different things in there, — different kinds of people would find it interesting and if, in the worst possible scenario, if no one found it interesting and it was just there then it would just be there and I can eventually have it written down so that I can someday make a book of the past, a memoir.
Jane: Yeah, that’s perfect! This is great, who knows where it’s going to go! Form this virtual, electronic world into a real book. I can imagine that!
Julia: Yeah! One of the real motivations for me is that memory. I am the carrier of all the memories now. And there are a lot, a lot, a lot of things. And some things were done with other people but there was an enormous amount of stuff that was just the two people and everything that was gone through. And if I don’t get it down, then it’s not getting down. I think people live their whole lives where things never get written down and logged in but there are times when it does and that’s a motivation for me and its something I can occupy myself with, and heal with.
Jane: Oh, I would think so too. I agree. I think that is great. Well I’d love to be the other side of the table… the other side of the conversation, the ears, the whatever it is that that means.
Julia: Yeah! The two sides. I agree. I love that idea.
Jane: Well good! Hey, Julia, someday we actually have to meet in person and just have tea or something! How far past Hinsdale are you?
Julia: Yes! Well, from Brattleboro I am about 13 miles.
Jane: OK, 13 miles from Brattleboro. But it is on the other side of Hinsdale as you’re heading out.
Julie: That’s right. From Hinsdale, oh it’s like seven miles from one point in Hinsdale.
Jane: Oh, okay. So here’s a ridiculous question… Is there any place in Hinsdale, like a coffee shop? I don’t know why, I don’t think Hinsdale has a lot.
Julia: No, I don’t think they do. But I’m in Brattleboro a lot. Because I have friends in Burlington that are going to be putting me up and then I have friends in Brattleboro that I have a little spare room that I’m going to go when its too cold or the weathers bad here I can go to and write and do stuff. So I’m in Brattleboro… I’m calling that my Brattleboro office.
Jane: Oh that’s good! That’s nice, so you have your real home you can go to and retreat to but the other’s kind of a place where… well, it’s great to have a little place in town!
Julia: Yeah, so there’s a possibility we could meet in Brattleboro sometime.
Jane: Alright! We don’t have to plan that all right now but that would be fun sometime just because it’s fun to look the other person in the eye.
Julia: Yeah! You mean to do this kind of interviewing, in fact?
Jane: Well that’s true too.
Julia: We would have to think about where we could do it where people wouldn’t be…
Jane: Well what’s the little office space like? Is that a possibility?
Julia: Well it’s in somebody’s house.
Jane: Oh, okay I get it. I’ll think too, because I actually have some very good friends who are just in town on one of the streets, and they both work all day and say “Oh come and use our house!” So possibly we could even meet at their house or something.
Julia: And also for the month of February I think we should take advantage of this; we could meet there and do it as an interview, put it on the blog and talk about where we are and then have that be the sort of way to spark some discussions; that exhibition is still up, that got extended into February.
Jane: Oh, excellent!
Julia: Yeah! So maybe we should do that and we could go across the street and get a coffee at Mocha Joe’s. They’re so kind there, they’ll bring two chairs in we could just use that as our space to interview.
Jane: Yeah, especially within the work.
Julia: Yes, with all that there you could say, “Tell me about this…” or whatever and then we could use it as a jumping off point.
Jane: Yeah, yeah! So since that’s going to be up and I feel so lucky it’s going to be up for February, we might as well take advantage of it.
Jane: Oh, I think you’re right about that!.
Julia: I’ll bring my tape recorder. And we’ll do that interview about the past and try and get another chapter. I love doing this with you!
Jane: That sounds great, me too! I’m very excited about this!
Julia: It’s very real and like this amazing journey.
Jane: It’s interested to me when I go back and think about how we came together and it was through hospice and whatever, you know, this is an interesting potential model for some ways people might want to do their bereavement work, this whole telling your story; writing your story through taping it. It’s another level of it. It’s very interesting.
Julia: We’re forging some territory.
Jane: I’ll put down 10:30 am, Friday, February 7th. My daughter’s birthday.
Julia: Your daughter’s birthday? Ah, that’s great. Happy Birthday to her, then!
And that will be the same day as the first friday so I will be heading back here and then going back to Brattleboro in the evening for the gallery walk.
Jane: OK, good! I’m all excited about this. I’m really looking forward to next week! Stay warm, get warm! Stay energized and don’t get sick!
Julia: You too! Good luck with everything! Good bye!