About

Yester started how every book dealer begins their journey: with an exceptional love for literature. A part of me first pursued the trade for a selfish reason, I simply wanted the excuse to be around more. More meaning not just the tangible or inspiring aroma, rather, I sought the presence which a book brings: those of the past. It's a sense of reunion. Today is here, tomorrow is awaited, but yesterday is gone.

Like the poetic motif Ubi Sunt, I too began to ask with François Villon the whereabouts of those, who like snow, were extinguished by the changing of the seasons. And with those questions came the guilt. I, in some way, like all-triumphant Time am also silencing the yester by turning my head. We already have our own connections to the past that don't require reading or owning a book, and they are such beautiful connections we more often relate with nostalgia. But how could I feel nostalgic about a person I've never met, or a memory of theirs in a time otherworldly to my own? My answer was to listen to them, hold something they held, even at times debating against them with my modern or culturally different insight. It was understanding them.

That battle against my guilt left open space for new shames. Dare I find these connections and garner them for myself? I'm no less malleable than the rest, and will also lose to Time, taking all those connections with me. Thus my new battle is sharing what I can to those who feel similarly. Such gained insight from a book and ever sought-after nostalgia is a gift best shared with the people.

But my words are also losers. They do not beat time or the world, and are weak alone. Like a book never read, they are only given significance by others. So what little words I share about my connections, I hope someone else will create their own and share them with someone who will understand them.

The gift of nostalgia. It is paradoxical by nature, but it is worth the attempt.

- Walker Johnson (from Yester)