Since Tuesday afternoon, I haven't stopped. I've logged more calls and more texts in the last four days than the last four months. I've slept less in the last four days than I do on a typical night. My brain and my heart feel overwhelmed. And when I heard the news from Connecticut yesterday, I didn't know my heart could break into tinier pieces. I've had to keep myself away from the media simply for my own self-preservation.
Writing is something I've done my whole life, from journals and stories, to poetry, and to more recently, novels. Writing is something that has gotten me through some really difficult periods in my life. On Wednesday I pulled out my journal and tried to write, but the emotion was too strong and I couldn't get words of any consequence to break through. Since that morning, I have pretty much been running non-stop. The store may have been closed for two days, but these days were in no way, shape, or form, like snow days.
Especially Thursday. On Thursday Clackamas Town Center held a meeting for its merchants. One person per store was allowed to attend. They signed us in and then escorted us into the theater. To say that the mood was somber, would be an understatement. Few people talked, few people smiled. After giving us a rundown on the plans for reopening and what we could expect from the mall and from the state of our stores, we were divided into zones and escorted by security. I was very grateful to be in the first zone called so I could move. Sitting still has been the impossible thing.
Even though it had been announced in the theater, it still surprised me to see the busted gate on our second floor entrance. The police had needed to do an additional sweep through our building and so they broke the gate. There were two men working on fixing it when I arrived. They were kind.
After putting my coat and bag in the office and checking on the computers and making sure the system got shut down properly, I took a deep breath and prepared myself to walk the entire store, aisle by aisle, to see what state it was in and look for any additional personal belongings that had been left behind in the chaotic exodus. It is a strange thing to be the only person in a store that size in the middle of a bright day.
In the music department, the area closest to the shooting, there was a small doll left on the floor. My knees went weak when I saw it. I have no idea whether or not the doll was dropped because the child and parents had to run or if it was lost there earlier in the day. Either way, I felt my strength begin to waver.
Most of the items left behind were in the cafe. There were coats, laptop chargers, backpacks, study cards, notebooks. There were drinks left everywhere and food. I checked on the equipment to make sure everything was off and called the cafe manager to help me shut down the espresso machines properly. There was a cup with a name and a shot of espresso left behind, the drink never finished because the cafe server and the customer had to run. I neglected to notice the soup was still on, though it was good to hear the laughter coming from the cafe on Friday morning as they discovered the state of the soup.
After I walked the store, I called my boss to update him on the reopening plans. There wasn't much else to do so I went to check on the gate to see if they were done. The guys were gone and so I grabbed my stuff, called security for my escort back out, and waited. When my escort arrived I attempted to shut the gate. It got 65% of the way down before it quit. It simply stopped working and I could neither raise nor lower the gate. My guard called in and he told me that they would send the guys back, that they were currently working on another damaged gate.
I then proceeded to wait. I busied myself with tasks. I called FedEx and made arrangements to pick up the weekly store mail (with paychecks) at their facility near the airport. I began working on the schedule for reopening, trying to figure out who needed to come in and when so we could at least look and function like the store we'd been prior to Tuesday. An hour went by and there was still no techs and I found myself beginning to lose it.
I don't know if it was just the same feelings of being trapped and unable to leave with no control over what was going on or what, but I began to feel a desperate need to leave the store. I went out into the mall to find someone. The same security guard who'd escorted me to the store in the first place, came to meet me and she must have heard the desperation in my voice and seen the tears welling in my eyes because within 5 minutes, my repair guy was back. He took a look at what was wrong and the security guard stayed with me. She had been ten feet away when the shooting began. She was tough, but I could see that she was struggling too. She began to tease the repairman, he is someone that does a lot of work in the mall so they have a history. She got me involved too and it helped. The joking, the laughter, it helped. It was going to take some time to get the gate working properly, but he told me if I could leave him with a key that he would leave it with security and I could pick it up the next day. I took him up on it.
The security guard escorted me back to the exit. She was funny and kind and I will never, ever forget that.
I got in my car and made my way to our Vancouver store. I needed a place where I could take a conference call and not worry about a bad connection or dropping calls. I also wanted to see some friendly and supportive faces. On my way there, I had my first breakdown while driving on 205.
I had my second when I got home and collapsed into my husband's arms.
Thursday night one of our booksellers had organized an Evening of Cheer and Laughter at the Old Chicago near our store. Though I was exhausted and depleted, I wanted to go and so my husband drove me. I didn't know just how much I needed to be surrounded by my coworkers, many of whom had been trapped those two hours in the breakroom with me and 14 of our customers. Over 40 people came and it was so good to see everyone smile and laugh and talk. As someone who is so often self-reliant, it was important to be reminded that we are sometimes strong simply because of the humans who support us.
Friday morning I got a few hours of sleep before I started watching the minutes tick by on the clock until my alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. At 4:50 a.m., I parked my car in front of my store and began the walk in. With each step I felt a surge of emotion and by the time I opened the doors I began to wonder how I was ever going to do it.
On the escalator upstairs, I managed to pull myself together and kept it together by keeping busy until it was time to have a meeting with the entire opening staff. I stood there in front of my team, having spent a large portion of the morning (including the time when I should have been sleeping) trying to figure out exactly what the right thing to say was. So many of them were with me on Tuesday and were brave and strong enough to return to work. Though there was much emotion, I managed to get through it.
At 9:00 a.m. we reopened our store for the first time since Tuesday afternoon and I was overwhelmed by the amount of customers who came pouring in. It was really hard to know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect it to be so busy. I ended up in music helping the music manager and rang up customer after customer, the majority of which were Barnes & Noble Members. It was amazing to see how much support came from our community, how many customers took the time on a Friday morning to come back and support the store and the mall. Before I left, pretty much all of our lost and found items had been collected.
With very few exceptions, all our customers were nice, patient, and supportive. There was one woman who was starting to get bitchy about finding help in the children's department claiming there was "no one in there." I had literally just walked out of the department and knew that there had been two of us in there. I found myself on the breaking point so I made my way to the office to take a moment. When I got there, I found some chocolates and chocolate covered pretzels, that had been left in front of our breakroom door by one of the customers who'd been in the breakroom with us. She had brought back the drawing (we'd given the kids crayons and paper) her daughter had drawn along with a note of gratitude for what we had done for them.
After yet another request was asked of me (all day I had been peppered with the usual type of demands/requests/needs), I finally did lose it and went to the bathroom and cried in one of the stalls until my eyes were red. I then escaped into the mall and found a bench where I could sit and gather myself together again.
My memories of Tuesday afternoon are scattered. I still don't know the entire story of how our staff and customers worked together to clear and secure the store so quickly and effectively. Every day I learn another piece of the story. What I do know is that every single person did exactly the right thing. Every bookseller, every manager, even the volunteers doing our gift wrapping, did exactly what needed to happen. One manager was brave and selfless enough to guarantee that all gates were lowered and all doors secure.
I remember one point on the escalator calling out names on the Daily Assignment Sheet, trying to determine if all of our staff was safe and accounted for. I remember grabbing candy from the stash in the cash office to put on the breakroom table for the staff and customers. I remember offering water and tea. I remember thinking, "We should probably call the other stores so they know we're okay." I remember thinking, "I should probably post something on Facebook so everyone knows I'm okay." I remember thinking, "I should call my husband and my parents so they know I'm okay."
As the time since Tuesday has unwound, I have never been more grateful for the people I work with and the company I work for. Barnes & Noble didn't have to pay every single employee for the time lost because of the shooting. It would have been understandable if employees hadn't been comfortable returning to work.
There is a lot of sadness this week, in our community and in our country. There are a lot of broken people. There are also a great many kind, brave, supportive people who care about the important things. I would not have survived this week without them. I would not have survived this week without all the hugs. Hugs from my employees, friends, the VP of Employee Relations, my peers, family who came to shop yesterday, my husband. Even my favorite Brinks Guy asked if he could hug me yesterday.
I still have faith in humanity. I saw some amazing actions come out of an awful act. But we do need to see some changes. We need to reinvest in our communities, politics aside. We need to have a healthy, open, honest debate about guns and how we regulate them. We need to support those in our community who struggle with mental health issues. There's been so much discussion about taxes this past year and this most recent election cycle. Because people, because corporations are selfish, there just isn't enough money to support the programs that need supporting to keep our communities healthy and safe.
That's as political as I want to get for right now. This isn't meant to be a blog about the whys, the hows, and the what nexts. This is about me, taking care of myself, feeling grateful to the community that has supported me as I've been struggling. I know there is so much more for me to process and I am grateful to each of you who've read these words and for all of you who've offered up support.
I am lucky in so many ways and grateful in so many others.
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| Some of the drawings left behind from the kids in the break room with us. |
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