Winners Don’t Quit

Shanna and her friend Vi had spent the last two hours in a café on the Cantón Grande of A Coruña. They had come that morning to see the Castelo de San Antón and had decided to go for coffee before returning to Bertamiráns.

While enjoying their coffee, they both discovered how much they wanted to understand the ideas surrounding the three ways of writing Galician. As they had read the rules and arguments since arriving in Galicia-which-was-also-Galiza, they had become more and more troubled. It wasn’t at all like the way English speakers detect different accents.

This was political and therefore was a very sensitive subject.

Controversy in this area was discouraging to those from outside who were trying to learn the language. That they understood. However, it was so important that those who approached the language from outside were immediately caught up in a web with no easy way to chart the best route. People who belonged to the culture had been learning the way the threads intersected since birth.

The two friends felt so vulnerable, trying to assess the best choice for them, so questioning, doubtful, until their anxiety reached its limit. Suddenly they exclaimed, in unison:

“I quit!”

They laughed, but the subject was serious.

They wondered if they could ever feel settled in this society they’d come to live in deliberately, hoping to start over. Each had her own reasons for leaving things behind, but they each avoided talking about them. It wasn’t necessary to explain some things.

Shanna and Vi also had preferences as far as how each of them wanted to speak and write the language, but they didn’t usually approach the thorny subject. The time in the café had been an exception. They had laughed, too, although the shared desire to quit - to return home to the States - was troublesome. They needed to stay were they were.

Fortunately, it was time to catch the train back to Santiago, which now only took half an hour. From there they had to catch a bus to Bertamiráns that could take fifteen minutes. Shanna entered the apartment building and stopped to open the clangy mailbox that was as ugly as all the rest that were lined up along one side of the entryway. She didn’t look at the envelopes or junk mail until she was upstairs and inside. Most of people’s interesting correspondence came electronically these days.

Shanna set her purse on the kitchen table and placed the items from the mailbox next to the bag. There was an envelope that seemed to be addressed to her in her mother’s handwriting. Odd, because her mother usually called or emailed her daughter. Shanna opened the envelope, worried for some reason. She read the few lines from her mother and saw that paper was accompanied by a photocopy of a page from a will. She knew then that her great grandmother had died. 

The photocopy was most likely something she’d inherited, like a necklace or a ring. She remembered seeing the elderly woman with her jewelry, but that was all. That was not what she had been given. It was nearly half a million dollars, along with a caveat: 

Use it for something worthwhile. Do not spend it all on yourself.

That was what Shanna saw as the reason she had received so much money and not a small piece of jewelry: her great grandmother knew she would obey the request. She immediately knew how she could do that. She would create her own business and ask Vi to join her as a partner. The business might grow - or not - but that did not matter. The inheritance was going to provide for quite a few partners - if that turned out to be the case - and the goal was definitely worthwhile.

Enough of useless fussing over how to write galego, because as long as a person tried to do it correctly and avoid castrapo, that was the important thing. Vi and Shanna knew that the business was for a good cause. They thought there might even be an advantage to being ‘from away’, because they could be forgiven for not being aware of all the social norms.

The business? Internationalizing Galician Literature. They didn’t have a catchy name or initials yet, but they were confident that would come. The right branding would make all the difference, so they were to be patient and let inspiration find them.

They got to work on Phase 1 of their business plan, which had nothing to do with financial planning. Neither Shanna nor Vi had any knowledge of Business. They never thought about whether they’d make any profit from their venture, because they didn’t depend on profits to pay their daily expenses. Who said all businesses need to make money?

Vi designed a few signs while Shanna went to ask about cost and if it was legal to do what they’d planned. Soon there were between fifteen and twenty posters with images of Galician writers and brief lists of titles published by each. The posters were to be used with simple stands that wouldn’t trip anybody.

Not tripping anybody was important, because the two women were going into the thick of the tourist crowds, the mobs that formed in the vicinity of the Cathedral. Their equipment needed to be easily transportable - small, light. In Phase 1, however, the posters on stands were not as important as the question the business partners had planned to ask tourist:

Who is your favorite Galician writer?

The question assumed the tourists actually knew Galicians could write. Shanna and Vi considered asking the question, but without allowing Rosalía de Castro as an answer. Maybe not Castelao either. They didn’t realize some tourists would get offended at being asked such a thing when they had come to Compostela trying to satisfy spiritual - and digestive - needs.

The Administration said nothing, but there were a few dour faces in Parliament the week after the Galician writers question had been taken into the street. It was asked hundreds if times a day, which might admittedly have been excessive, but Shanna and Vi’s intentions were good.

Plus, Tere came to them, asking if she could become a partner as well. Yes, of course. Then Eli arrived, and Lis. Five was a perfect number for the time being. However, it was going to be necessary to initiate Phase 2.

Phase 2 was still rather in-your-face as far as the devout/hungry tourists were concerned, but it approached the topic of Galician writing differently. Quotes from different novels, poems, and plays were added to the group of posters of individual authors. Mostly the quotes were translated into English, but there were some in other languages, done by volunteers.

Administrative and law enforcement feathers were ruffled again, but it took longer to call the business partners to a meeting to once again discuss why there was a need to harass the fine people who journeyed to see the burial place of the patron saint of Spain, Santiago (and eat and drink). Shanna and Vi encouraged the three new partners to be present as well, and of course they were.

Five is better when facing the Authorities. It was still decided that Phase 2 had been carried out and Phase 3 was now required. Phase 3 would need to shift the focus from educating visitors to the saint’s city to educating with a global focus, using art.

Quilt squares. Tere proposed they send out a call for quilt squares, about 20 x 20 centimeters. The squares would have literary texts and images to fit the words. Squares would be sent to a site for assembly. The resulting quilt would be placed on permanent display in a public building such as a library. The other four partners approved immediately. 

This is technically Phase 3, but it hasn’t been completed yet. There are over a thousand squares and the contributions are still coming in.

Literary pamphlets - we’ll call them Phase 4 - began to be placed in airbnb lodgings, hotels, and in public transportation areas. Some of these materials later appeared in collages, but that was fine, too. As long as people were learning about the literature of Galicia, the business continued to thrive. In a few key places, dispensers were used, providing free bits of quality writing to people who were interested. (Quite a few were.)

After a few months of spreading the good words, the apostles for literature had grown in number. There were nine now, and all nine readily approved Eli’s suggestion that they offer a prize for the best travel literature about Galicia not written in Spanish, Portuguese, Basque, Catalan, or Galician. Odd way to put it, but that way they were going to get authors from beyond the Iberian Peninsula.

Eli’s idea was good, but complicated or organize and carry out. For this reason it continues to be in progress, like the extensive quilt project. Worthwhile things, great grandmother had said, were worth doing right. By getting the word out about the future award, they were generating a lot of interest in visiting Galicia, in going off the beaten path or below the surface, as good travel literature is supposed to do.

While all this was going on, the nine partners were also running a coffee shop, a bar, and a souvenir store, all of which had the common theme of literature. Just as an example, all of the souvenirs had to have a quote or an author’s portrait, a book cover, anything that would link it to Galician writing. T-shirts, mugs, keychains, colorful socks - of course there’s a long list of possibilities. Puzzles, cloth shopping bags, porcelain plates.

Is that any different than stores that sell only items with sports logos or military designs. Not at all.

By this point the Authorities had settled down a bit. Like many new things that are presented to Galician culture, this new thing of actually promoting something beside religious faith and food had taken a while to acquire a modicum of acceptance. Yet gradually it had taken root. The outsiders hadn’t had any self-doubts like a lot of Galician speakers, and had just decided to become professional cheerleaders for the literature. 

Bold idea, but it had worked. Kind of like the bookshop Shakespeare and Company in Paris, it had started to draw tourists. Never a bad thing. (They were administrators and politicians, after all.) 

Maybe visitors would actually enjoy a bit of culture. Maybe they’d appreciate a good story about wolves, customers in a tavern in Lugo, or a detective story set in Vigo. Maybe… maybe there was something more to this lit thing than a poet who published a book in her language, the first in four centuries. Maybe that revolutionary act didn’t happen just in 1863. 

Maybe, said the business that still had no name and was able to sustain eleven members - soon to be twelve - without ever checking to see if there had been any profits lately. Maybe it happens every time a writer chooses to publish in galego. Every single time, and more all the time.

Maybe literature can also speak to those who come to Santiago out of hunger for something more.

Some are talking now about the creation of an Instituto. Some want to name it after Rosalía de Castro, but others are reluctant, as is to be expected. Like the business, the institute seems to be on a slippery path to finding a name. That is not of concern. The names will come.

At least Shanna and Vi have stopped worrying about which writing system they’ll use for galego. They know, too, that they’ll never quit. There’s too much good literature to promote. Maybe the inheritance has been used up; maybe it hasn’t. Maybe this whole venture was never about money.