COVID-19 Small Business Journal: Week 11 Update

Another weekly update! What a joy to still be here.

Usually at the Victoria Day weekend, we repot the plants, but time has been a bit slim this year. Despite this, the plants continue to thrive. Sunshine, eavesdropping on everyone’s conversations. Nature taking over.

Bike lanes are being installed here in Toronto, and I’m hoping at the speed of the way things work here, maybe there will enough installed for Caleb to ride around the city when he’s old enough. There is a slow unfolding of things here in the city.

We continue to hold steady with no imminent plans to re-open the brick and mortar. We talk to other small business owners and we’re all (metaphorically) leaning in close, eyes agog like we’re watching for the gestapo, whispering to each other: so, what are you doing? Are you opening? What are your plans? I’m being dramatic, it’s not really so cloak and dagger. Sometimes it’s more apparent when someone needs to be talked off the edge.

There’s pressure to open and there’s pressure to stay closed. Paying the staff, paying the bills, paying the landlord, keeping customers happy, keeping everyone safe, not making it harder for other businesses, supporting other local businesses, not getting swallowed up whole. A rising tide lifts all ships, and we’re still unsure if the tide is coming or going. Maybe this is what Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, wanted, when he opened the gates. Businesses would could stay shut still would, but those that could only survive by re-opening would have the chance to do so.

Another week with new things in, restocking, orders out. Shipments from some of our distributors and manufacturers are flowing again and we are very much looking forward to a few things in particular, stay tuned.

There’s not too much to update. E-reader Josh is e-reading. I’m still clinging to my bricks, propped up at awkward angles in bed, huddled close to my lamp. I recently started Beartown by Fredrik Backman, a book about a hockey community. I am no sports enthusiast, but I really liked both Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, which was heartbreaking, and the TV show Friday Night Lights, and this book is a mix of both. It’s translated from the Swedish by Neil Smith, and I am thoroughly enjoying getting lost in this remote Swedish village buried under snow 8 months of the year, conspiratorially and pathetically pretending like our own Toronto winters are as harsh and unrelenting. It took about zero days for me to go from complaining about snow in May to complaining about the heat in May.

In any case, hope you are all finding good things to read, to eat, to listen to, to watch, and maybe a bit of time to write as well.