Pilgrim Small Press is named after Ivaan, whose nickname (to me, anyway) was Pellegrino, the Italian word for pilgrim. It was a particularly apt nickname for him, as his entire life was a pilgrimage to a place where he felt the most free and unencumbered. No artist myself, I could see how important it was for him to make this journey.
I was often amused, during our married life, by people who looked askance at what must have seemed to them a really traditional marriage. Ivaan never washed a dish, never shovelled the snow, never mowed the lawn, took out the garbage, never cooked a meal or wielded a vacuum cleaner.
He never expected me - or anyone - to do those things. He didn't even recognize that they were things that ought to be done. I did a great many other things, such as laying cobblestones in our front and back gardens, carpentry, tiling, electrical and - well, just about everything - quite cheerfully, because expecting Ivaan to participate in any of those things would have been a waste of my time, and even more important, a waste of Ivaan's time, too.
It was more important for me to enable him to concentrate on his art, a decision I have never regretted. His one regular foray into domestic life was grocery shopping, which he loved. Happily, this was the one thing I disliked, so we were well matched. He sliced fruit for my breakfast, he once took a loaf of bread out of the oven, and he once helped me take down a wall. Other than that, his domestic endeavours consisted of holding out his open wallet, saying frantically, "Take! Take!" This meant, "My money is yours. Take all you want to hire someone to help you do whatever you want around here; just don't ask me to help you."
I knew exactly what I wanted Pilgrim Small Press website to look like. Thanks to the kindness of a couple of seriously talented people, it does look exactly like the image inside my head. And, just like that, pilgrimsmallpress.com is a thing.
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Congratulations, Eya! You are a force!
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