i’m a downtown kinda place

Dear Diary, Working downtown…this is what it’s like. You know nearly everybody. You have your regulars that just stop in to say hi. You have your lunch hour visitors who just take the time out of their work day for a bit of tranquility at the studio. It is really quite a pleasant little routine. I love that when you walk out your door, you are outside. I like knowing people, saying hi to everyone, that feels like home. Like many downtown, Amherst has taken a beaten from malls and big box stores but we are lucky in that we still have a small successful, hard working group of small business who want to be downtown. Some have been here for generations and they belong here.

This summer , the town fixing the parks and the sidewalks, putting a new boost of energy into the community. We need that, but mostly we need the business community to keep working and thriving, so that the lovely new brick sidewalks get well used. We just saw a beautiful awning added to the Lion’s Club to accommodate our Friday Morning Market. That is a lovely thing. Bricks and mortar matter. It is important to keep things nice. To bring out the flowers , the planters, to sweep your sidewalk, to primp your front door. At the studio we say, we’re putting out the farm, in reference to the flowers we put outside each morning. We do it because it matters. We want our space to look beautiful , and sweet. We want to welcome you before you get in the door.

I like shopping in my downtown because I find it easy. You just walk in, ask for something and some one lays it in your hand. That is so much easier than, driving, parking, wandering, getting distracted by all the things you don’t want, having unwanted elevator music pumped into your ears, finally finding the thing, and then waiting in a line up to pay for it. I’m thinking about that now cause I need a shoe rack ( very messy shoe corner) and it means a trip to the department store. I don’t wanna go. May be Hopper will do it? But then there’s the risk of a white plastic shoe rack that is as big as a compact car. I love him though, he’ll always do me a favour.

So downtown suits me fine. Sometimes there are loose coffee cups strewn about. I just pick them up. Sometimes its a little crazy down here. We have characters like you find in most downtowns, but it’s important to remember that we are all part of the cast. We all belong.

I just like it that things are easy going. There’s no big rush down here. There’s good service, from small independent owners, who work in their places. I guess I like belonging, and I find it easy here, to belong.