Last week (Feb 18), Minneapolis lost Heidi's, Blackbird, Shoppe Local and one location of Patina in a big fire. I had oral surgery on Friday and missed the news until this week when I heard on the radio that "sadly now burned down" Heidi's chef had been nominated for a James Beard award.
I've been known to stop at the gift shops on my way home from work to pick up a card here, a token of friendship there. It was a handy break in my commute. I ate at Blackbird once, a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Heidi's has been on my list of must try restaurants, but I was saving it for an occasion that deserved an extra special treat. Sometimes waiting for the right moment is a really bad idea.
Since I heard the news, I've been thinking about that little pocket of retail on 50th Street. I go way back with that corner of my home city. In '93-'94, I worked for Caribou Coffee. I started at the 40th & France shop when they had two locations and moved downtown to Gaviidae Common when it opened (the free triple latte at the end of my early morning shift got me through the #16 bus ride to the U and 4 hours of studio most days). Not long after I started, they opened a shop in the now charred brick building. If I remember right, it was in Blackbird's spot. Caribou started roasting their own beans in the back of that little shop. My manager and one of my co-workers at Gaviidae both worked on the roasting for a while and I would hang out there with them on days off. I remember stopping in for a visit and to take a break from packing just before I left for a quarter of study in the Middle East. My memory of that afternoon is more like a painting than a movie, but it's pretty clear after all these years.
Gets me wondering whatever happened to Kristy (?) and Gene. My memory won't cough up last names (or Gene's partner's name - she played cello beautifully for fun, their daughter Grace is probably learning to drive now) so I can't look them up on Facebook. I remember helping Gene and family move into an apt. in Minneapolis when they returned from establishing Caribou's Atlanta market and all of us discussing the merits of placing glasses in cupboards rim up vs. rim down. And I remember Grace singing a song about trees and swaying in the sunny yard.
Then, somewhere along the way, they slipped out of my life again, as gently as they'd slipped into it. No dramatic moment of goodbye, no fight, just lives diverging. I would like to know that they're well and happy, but I'm not sure I truly want to find them. I don't want to have some awkward dinner where we all feel like we're supposed to be friends because we were 15 years ago. I want to remember these lanky, lithe, creative, funny, joyful people who shared a little bit of their life with a version of me who wasn't even imagining where I am now. I hope I was a good friend to them. I hope every once in a while, while setting a glass in the cupboard, they feel a happy little tickle of remembering that moving day (I still do).
I am feeling very grateful today for friends I've had and friends I've kept and even for friends I've yet to meet.
2 comments:
One thing that I've noticed about the many phases of your life in Mpls is that nearly all of them involve bus routes! You could write a very personal guide to traveling the city that way.
Other than the firs part, I like this post. I like it a lot. Oh, and Em - what a fun observation!
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