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Oh hi down there from that sunflower towering over your head --
Well folks, the time has come! The past few months have felt a lot like doubling the size of our airplane while flying it, so next week we're going to land this baby for just a minute. We'll be closed for renovations from Labor Day to Friday, aspiring to open again by Saturday, September 12th. Wish us fair winds -- and please forgive us if we're delayed! As y'all know we're a tiny team over here, though we're very grateful to the kind souls who have reached out to volunteer their helping hands. If you happen to enjoy painting, shelf assembly, or similar tasks, we'll be having work parties (with lunchies!) every day we're closed.
In ways both small and grand, we really wouldn't (couldn't!) be doing this without all of you. We opened our doors here by grace of a modest ARPA grant and a couple zero interest credit cards strung together, and literally everything it has grown into is because y'all showed up and kept it up. Your support -- all the gifts you've given, books you've read, suggestions you've offered, events you've come out to, friends you've woven into the web -- have made Chicory what it is today.
Taking on this expansion would always have been a risk. And admittedly, it does feel riskier in our current climate... Yet that same sense of precarity, that anxiety, that unknowing that might have talked me out of it, is honestly what made me want to take on this project more than anything. Because starting Chicory in the first place was objectively a much bigger risk, and the reason I've never once regretted it has nothing to do with the financials. It's all down to the people. To y'all. Being deeply immersed in community with folks who care, who have actively turned away from the nihilism du jour and invested themselves instead in the land, in learning, in art, in kindness, in every sort of care work under the sun -- that is my best and ultimately my only real weatherproofing for what may come. I can't think of any better risk I could take than a chance to make space for that community to grow.
In gratitude,
Chris
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