A Love Letter To The Firebrand
After 28 years the first place to ever sell The Climbing Zine closed its doors
Did you hear the Firebrand is closing?
It was one of those texts that comes on one of those days. The days when sadness and bad news piles up, like, of course, I’m going to find out at this moment that the most important place in my adult life is closing its doors for good.
Then, almost immediately I didn’t go to a place of sadness, my heart went to a place of gratitude.
And I thought, hopefully this will be a good thing for Heidi and Kate, the Magnus sisters, who for 28 years, fostered a place I can only call home, in the guise of a restaurant.
I’m writing these words in El Potrero Chico, Mexico, far away from Gunnison, Colorado, and I am immediately tearing up when I think of the Magnus sisters, and our beloved Firebrand, which I’ll refer to as the FB from here on out.
And I’m going to switch right into my hopeful romantic, love letter writing self, because that’s who I am, and The FB was an essential part of me realizing who I am. And we all need to be in tune with who we really are, or life is a waste.
At first this little deli that could on Main Street was just a place to get a sandwich or a cup of tea, and write in my journal.
I’d arrived as a transplant from Normal, Illinois, and I’d recently been through a major mental health crisis; one that is all too common amongst young people today, but one that I thought at the time I was the only person to ever experience, and made me feel that lonely.
I looked like your normal 21 year old hippie kid, but for a time period of a year or so, inside I felt old, lifeless, and on death’s door.
The Firebrand not only helped me rebuild, but it did so in a very subtle way. One cup of tea, one sandwich at a time.
One day I didn’t have any paper to journal on, so I just decided to start writing a poem on a napkin. Heidi, who always ran the front of the house, noticed this, and figured I was staying for a while, so she gave me one of those reusable tea steepers.
That gesture still stays with me to this day, some 20 plus years later. I was far away from my birthplace, and I was dealing with the aftermath of a mental health crisis, which is almost as hard as the crisis, with no therapist or support system like I have now, and this kind person, said, here, stay a while, but not in words only in the form a cup of tea.
I stayed for a decade.
Heidi and Kate were like Outkast, the great hip-hop duo of Andre 3000 and Big Boi. Probably neither one could do what they were doing without one another. Heidi ran the front of the house, and Kate, the back of the house. And what came out was magic.
Hellos and thank you’s with Kate were always brief, but special. A smile exchanged to know it was meaningful. Always coming and going, like the pitter pats of a much needed rainstorm.
Heidi went on to become an important figure in my life. Much like my professors at Western Colorado University. She’s right up there with Darla DeRuiter, Shelley Read, and George Sibley.
She was always kind to me, that tea gesture extended far and wide. When I started making The Climbing Zine the FB was the first place to sell them. The FB never took a percentage either, giving me 100% of the sales to pocket or buy food with. I hosted the first ever “zine things” there. Imagine, what is now the international success known as The Climbing Zine, all started by selling stapled together black and white copies for $2, alongside muffins and cookies. Damn, I’m going to miss those muffins.
I left Gunnison in 2010 to move beyond “college me” towards a bigger and warmer town in Durango. I fretted over the decision for a long time, and wondered if it was the right one for me. It was. And I always felt like I could return home to the Firebrand. Gunny always still felt like home because of my friends there, and because I knew I always had a seat at the table at The Firebrand. The Polaroids and cards that decorated the walls never changed, but also somehow grew. Sometimes reminders of people we lost, others reminders of the sweetness of living in a connected, small mountain town.
Every time I published a book or zine I’d send up copies, and when I’d come for a visit I had money to buy my breakfast or lunch. Damn, what I wouldn’t do for one more BET breakfast special with a cup of tea. I can still see it, taste it, I’m still in love with what I experienced there. I can see my two favorite tables: one for when I was alone, and another for when I was with a group of friends.
There was a feeling of home and inclusivity that I’ve tried to incorporate into my life’s work. The FB as a business is strangely similar to The Climbing Zine.
Just like Heidi did, I’ll go out of my way to try and include something extra, to try and brighten someone’s day. I know that came from the FB. I know that it’s an honor to have a business that not only delivers a good, but a type of joy that will resonate for a lifetime, like the FB did.
For a variety of reasons, I didn’t make it to the FB for one last meal. And I also didn’t make the gathering they held at the college. I’m at peace with that. The meaning the FB had it my heart was so personal, and so deep, it was probably better for me to live in memory than to try and think I could find closure there at the end. The FB will always be a part of me, and will guide the philosophies I use to live my life.
I did brainstorm of what I would have said if I would have been able to make the event. The essence would have been something to the effect of turning places that are on the surface transactional, like say a place that serves breakfast and lunch, to becoming something much more: a home with an extended misfit, outkast sort of family.
Because I didn’t come up for one last meal, and because I didn’t make the final event, I hadn’t had any contact with Heidi or Kate. But, this week I got an email from Heidi. She said she had a stash of copies of The Climbing Zine that she wanted to send me.
Something that has happened over the last couple years, is that fans of The Zine avidly collect the old issues and will also pay a pretty penny for them; which delights me to no end, knowing that my life’s work is very much appreciated and respected.
Heidi and I have had a great email chain, which still feels like a natural conversation, and in this process she sent me photos of all the zines she had, which will surely be appreciated by readers of The Zine.
Stories like these don’t have endings. The FB will forever live in my heart. It meant the world to me, and felt as much like home as my childhood home, or where I am at home now; which these days is not just one place, or even one country. The FB was home, plain and simple.
But I love this little ending that she has all these rare zines that are now in the mail, on their way to the Zine HQ in Durango. One final gift from The Firebrand. The FB was the compost for the seeds of my writing, my life’s work. How all of this could have come out of a place that simply went by the name of a delicatessen?
It nurtured us delicately. With love and care and family, and nutrition, all these things that people need.
The story doesn’t end. I can only say, to Heidi, and to Kate, to everyone who walked through those doors and walked out with more love: thank you. I heart the FB.