Bear is a Magical Coffee Shop
The way I see it, there is a small, cozy coffee shop where all of our blogs coexist. You come in, order your coffee from a cool barista wearing a Pixies T-shirt, with blue hair and a nose ring and a tattoo of their cat on their arm, who always gets your name correct when writing it on your cup. You have a seat in the window while you wait, so you can people watch through the glass, and you get out your notebook or laptop or journal, and you start writing.
At the table next to you, someone else is writing in their journal, stopping to raise their coffee cup to their lips, smiling as they reread what they've written. They're so pleased by it that they start to read it out loud, and you listen to what they've written, and smile at them in return.
At the other end of the shop, another person scoots their chair back and stands. They have a spiral notebook in their hands, and they start to read from it, nervously at first, but with more confidence as they go. When they finish, everyone in the coffee shop claps with enthusiasm, and the author turns red but can't stop smiling, giving a wave and sitting back down, turning to the next blank page in their notebook and picking up their pen.
Before the barista calls your name and you go to collect your coffee, three more people have read their writing to the room. When you return to your table, you think to yourself what the hell, and you read aloud from the page you've been writing. The other patrons in the shop smile and clap. A few of them approach your table and drop scraps of paper in front of you, with their emails or Signal names or phone numbers on them, so you can connect later and start laying the foundations for deeper connections with like-minded folks, expanding your community.
This place (Bear, specifically, the blogosphere as well if we choose it to be) is our coffee shop, our place of inclusion and comradery and community. We come here to both share and to listen, to reach out and to embrace. It is the home we have always quietly yearned for. It is the center we have traveled years to reach.
Enjoy your coffee, everyone.
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