For the Love of Friendship

Last year, many companies and retailers were forced out of business stemming from the results of a recessed economy caused by a global credit crunch. The US Dept. of Labor’s report indicates the unemployment rate in December 2009 for Washington State was 9.5%.
 
Here’s the inspiring story of Gina Garcia. Bittersweet Bakery and Bistro and Celeste Shaw, owner of Chaps  Restaurant and what a friend will do when her best friend is faced with the painful decision to close her business, her dreams, her identity and her passion from the effects of a recession. A true friend is like a star whose love shines stronger and brighter during times of darkness. When it hurts to look back, or scary to look ahead, you can look beside you in faith knowing that your best friend will be there.
 
Dear Bakery,
 
I was recently sitting in Chaps enjoying a delicious cup of coffee with my mom and as I gazed out the window I thought I saw you.  Was it you dear bakery?  Did I see your figure taking shape on that cold damp day?  The cement footings, the steel beams and columns were just a whisper of what you are to be.  My eyes filled with tears.  I miss you, but just as Spring is beginning to reveal itself, you also will rise up.  
 
Thinking of you,
Gina Garcia
 
 
Northwest Woman: How did you meet Celeste?
Gina Garcia: Chaps was newly opened and a mutual friend thought that Bittersweet’s baked goods would be a perfect fit with what Celeste was offering at her shop.  We had a kind of instantaneous “click”.  As I spoke with her, I somehow knew that we were going to do something important together and that she was going to have a deep significance in my life.
Knowing that is going to happen somehow right there in the first meeting, some call it destiny or fate I think it is serendipity.
 
Northwest Woman: How did you meet Gina?
Celeste Shaw: Perhaps more often than not we are given moments of grace. Truly many of these moments arrive via the hand of a friend. Like little presents, there is a serendipity that is congruent and harmonious when you meet someone and you know you will be friends forever.
I knew the moment Gina gave me a piece of her ginger chocolate chip cookie on my first visit ever to her sweet little bakery. I’ll admit I wanted the whole thing it was so delicious, still I knew within those first few moments. We were and always would be friends. Like family, friendship will survive disagreements, new jobs, failures, successes, relationships, family insanities, and it will transcend any distance-, any timeline and any circumstance to protect the devotion shared between friends.
It’s that wonderful old-fashioned idea that others come first and you come second. This was the whole ethic by which I was brought up. Never fail to remember what is so easy to often forget,-that life itself is a glorious opportunity. I’ve always thought the world looked great through rose colored glasses, and now I feel privileged to dream a dream and build it with my talented and accomplished friend.
 
Northwest Woman: What challenges did you experience from a bad economy?
Gina Garcia: Because I had been a small business owner for over twelve years, I was profoundly aware of the amount of energy that went into making a business competitive and healthy. 
It is like a small child that needs constant attention.  Closing my business was one of the most difficult decisions I had ever had to make.  The bakery had become woven into the very fiber of who I was and as I watched it dissolve away I felt a part of myself go with it. 
When asked, “what happened” I can think of a litany of answers.  Geography. Parking.  Weather.  Economy.  Timing. 
Deep down I blamed myself and I felt that I had failed and that I had let a lot of people down.  It was a humbling time in my life.  Looking back, moments that seem to be great failures are the incidents that shape our lives.  It looked like a train wreck, but I decided to go at it as if it were an opportunity, a challenge. 
The healing often hurts more than the injury because I had to turn the microscope onto myself.  I thought that if I could survive this I would be stronger because I will have found a larger base and the strength to hold onto it.  Nietzsche called this the “love of your fate”.  Perhaps our mistakes are what make our fate.
 
Northwest Woman: What inspired you to take a leap of faith for your friend and offer her to move in with you at Chaps?
Celeste Shaw: She inspired me. It’s really that easy. I sat before her as a witness to the devastation she felt, and the misconception that she had failed, not with business but with herself.
Despite an overwhelming change presented to her, she maintains a kind of courage with a relentless persistence of life.  It renews my faith. She is perfectly human.  I recognize the very familiar, fragile and tender desire to create what you love and also endure the suffering that comes when you are vulnerable to trying.
My mind had a voice quietly thinking. “Don’t wander from faith and hope Gina”. “This isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.” So together we will have this remarkable anticipation of what we can achieve.
 
Northwest Woman: Gina, How did you react to Celeste’s offer?