Mourning Cloak Is Open!

hot day reveries, looking forwards and backwards at once, and the penultimate opportunity to chip in to the cause

Sweltering today, and I in my undies and stocking feet in the basement storage fetching the pink suitcase from the charity shop in Paddock Wood, Kent, where I sorted the rags of an abandoned life into two piles, take and leave, last October, and in which my two fistfuls of summer clothes have been stored throughout Maine’s long, deep, delicious, but now distant , winter months. Good to see you, white linen shirt. It’s been too long, shorts the color of an Aegean shallows.

Out on the streets, my nose found the lilacs before my eyes, their scent emerging only yesterday; the cherry blossoms have given way to a toddling green fuzz; the plums will light up like a bruise for another week; and the apple blossoms are too heavy for their nodding, listless branches.

Mourning Cloak, my bakery, opened its door a few weekends ago, blooming with the cherry blossoms, whose petals I foraged in a thin, weedy, dawnlight and then steeped in sugar water to make a light pink syrup which we poured into seasonal lattes… for one brief, cherished moment.

Because, dear readers, I have to admit that the first few weeks of business have been been turbulent. Our espresso machine is broken, and has been since nearly the beginning of business (the déjà vu I just experienced writing that sentence put my head into my hands; I confess I haven’t been experiencing time in a linear fashion for months), and this hurt revenue so much that we reduced our hours, and that in turn has led to some employee turnover.

Moreover, I’ve had a series of obligations, including a mother hospitalized at Via Christi in Wichita KS, which have resulted in a long string of absences. In theory, the team I had hired had the experience and willingness to run the shop without me, but, in practice, the unique problems inherent to a opening new business were just too numerous and various for them to thrive.

I am embedded here now, however, and excited to work, lead, and create. It will be an intense period of weeks, as I revise the first draft of Mourning Cloak into publishable copy, oversee the completion of construction on Sweetfern Geometer, open the SfG seating to Mourning Cloak customers, and prepare for the grand opening of Sweetfern Geometer itself. Wheels within wheels, and, blessedly, a business loan from the City of Portland to help make it happen. I wish I could say that all my financial worries are now behind me, and maybe they are, but recent experience has taught me that more is always necessary.

And so, for those readers who would like to contribute to the cause, especially those who will be coming to Portland, I am running a NuMarket campaign. NuMarket offers 120% store credit to customers for making an upfront investment in a business. If you know you may spend $100 somewhere, you can pledge it in advance, and then receive 120% of that investment back over the course of six months. We’ve been talking about this in Mourning Cloak since we opened, and I’d love it if some of the readers of this newsletter and old regulars at Tannat would feel moved to support this project. There’s only five days left of the campaign. I’ll be writing again before the campaign ends, but that will be the final time I speak of raising money.

I too often get lost in the the labyrinth of remembered pain. The short, sudden, and complete collapse of ten years of marriage and work, further marked by my mother’s health and autonomy issues, moving to a new city, my partner backing out of the small business loan, then the loan collapsing despite a new cosigner, and all the hard choices I have had to make since then, all the surprise costs and delays, the specter of failure dogging every single step... triumphs, yes, and the help of friends, and bolts of life-saving good fortune... so many blessings too, but those blessings rendered heavier and heavier every time potential ruin reappears.

I return again and again to the original vision. A life of nourishing others, of beauty and creativity, of financial stability and meaningful work… This weekend I will be creating a new menu for the bakery, introducing online ordering, and, hopefully, pouring shots from a working espresso machine. Next week, construction will be completed, and inspections for Sweetfern will begin the following week. I’ll find the basic equipment we need, place the first food and drink orders, and find staff. The tourist season is just beginning. In September, by the end of it, one year since I moved here, I will have a stable new business; the ground will be beneath my feet again. I’ll achieve it through creating unique culinary experiences and a space of delight and repose.

And all this pain will mere be motes of dust thickening a sunbeam in another room.

The writing of this has run into the heavy hear of the late afternoon. A cleansing thunderstorm remains an incoherent tangle of dark wisps on Casco Bay. Who knows if the lightning bolts will fall? Certainly not me, or the redolent lilacs, or the pom-pom apple blossoms.

Yet again, if you would like to support the NuMarket campaign, here is the page. Additionally, if anyone wants to reply with a congratulations or good luck or hey what’s up, please don’t be shy. A small chorus of greetings would be so very welcome.

Thank you for reading,

William

p.s.

Last weekend I turned 46. I spent it cheffing a three day pop-up murder mystery event at a bar in Brooklyn with a composer collective called Iceberg New Music. I toiled in a semi-legal basement kitchen on a four course meal, while above, brilliant singers, actors, and improvisors delighted diners with their art. I originally met my composer friends in Inwood. Two of them came to my pop-up event at the long-gone Darling Coffee the year before Tannat opened. I drove down from Maine to work the event with my new love, Katherine, who I also met in Inwood, long ago, before she moved to Maine. We “collaborated” on an instagram post, so I guess we’re official, and if we’re official, then she should be mentioned here.