by nancylee bouscher

I’ve heard the Co-op referred to as many things, from “my favorite place in Skagit” to “that bougie middle-class hippie place.” We’ve been told we are cozy and welcoming and also accused of being too friendly. Some paint us with broad strokes while others pick us apart with a fine-tooth comb, and yet, here we are. Through many remodels, resets, and maybe a few regrets we are entering into the 50th year of something that started as a spark of an idea by a group of average folks making it up as they went along.

I used to imagine the Co-op as a hub of a wheel. We were at the center, rotating around by the work of many, moving forward. Then I started to see us more like a great tree with the roots and the leaves and the sun. We’ve got the members and the customers and the Board of Trustees and the staff – but I couldn’t decide who were the roots or if we all were the roots. My most recent visual is more of a spider’s web. I’ve always been fascinated by spiders and their ability to build a home that doubles as a trap, out of nothing. They don’t march off to snip off bits of leaves and then glue them together or gather bits of fluff from dry grass to weave a nest. They pull the material out of their body and then make this beautifully complex web, which is actually how I imagine this Co-op started: one fragile string linked to another and another until you stand back and see it glimmering with jewels of rainbow dew.

Thinking back of the early days I reached out to two of my favorite main threads on the web of the Co-op: Todd and Bev. I asked them specifically what the first wellness products they remember us selling were, and their responses delighted me and confirmed one of my initial guesses: Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap. It’s not like it’s a requirement that Co-op shoppers have tried it (I do get pretty jazzed up when I get to introduce someone to it), but it’s kind of a rite of passage. Both Bev and Todd remember us selling the peppermint in bulk, as we still do, so folks could bring back their gummed-up bottles to refill and pay by weight. It’s the wonder soap – just read the label – that can be used for everything from washing your dog, your clothes, your body, your dishes. Rumor has it that the hard core amongst us even wash their teeth with it.

I remember in college I lived in a big tomb on Grant Street in Bellingham. Like many college houses, the layout made no sense. The bathroom was on the other side of the house from the bedrooms, right next to the kitchen, and in that shower was a big tub of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap. Many Saturday mornings as I made coffee, the sound of “SQUEEEEE” would erupt from the bathroom as a house guest decided to give it a go and got the icy jolt of peppermint all over their tenderbits. We’d grin and chuckle as the embarrassed but MINTY FRESH house guest emerged from the steam and began to try to explain what just happened when their soul left their body for a hot second. No, we never warned them.

This is by no means a unique experience either. I have shared many, many laughs with people over this very Dr. Bronner’s whoosh-factor. Even if it’s a cliché, I wholeheartedly embrace it. I’m okay being considered so crunchy that I fangirl over a soap company that started in 1948 and seek out other followers in the houseware aisle. Recently, one of the reps from Dr. Bronner’s came and visited our store. Josh looked like he was cosplaying The Dude from the Big Lebowski, and I mean that as a compliment. He was exceedingly funny and positive. He was so clearly stoked to work for Dr. Bronner’s and checked all the boxes I expect from such an iconic company: he ran a small store with kombucha on tap, he wore a necklace he found while he was cleaning up garbage on the beach, and he played guitar in a band that sounded like a hug feels. He absolutely is in the web of crunchy Co-op kids who burn their buns now and then, accidentally on purpose.

When I asked about the early-on supplements, both Todd and Bev mentioned that it was a while before that part of the store took off. Initially, the Co-op’s focus was on THE FOOD – and much of it still is. The Wellness Department is a small corner now, but it started as mere inches in the original storefront. We started with bulk herbs and empty capsules. If you wanted to not taste the sucking bitterness of Goldenseal, then prepare to have yellow fingertips as you scooped it into 00 gelatin capsule halves that came together with a satisfying SNAP!

When I first started shopping at the Co-op, I remember the big machine of bulk capsules, that had a shelf of bulk herbs housed in plastic boxes that you’d slid into the machine. You’d type in how many capsules you wanted and put the empty plastic bag under the metal spout. It would count out the pills and then you’d pay per pill, like a vending machine full of herbal magic. That thread led me to remember the big carousel of bulk tinctures you could use to refill your own bottles and make a colossal mess all in one poorly planned act of self-care.

Thinking of tinctures reminded me of a customer I had a couple months ago: she was probably a bit younger than me, standing in front of the wall of herbal tinctures early in the morning. As I came around the corner, I could see her eyes scanning the many bottles of herbs in a slightly worried way. The creases of her brow bent in an angle of concern, or maybe pain. When she turned her face toward me the immensity of her unease hit me – the puffy red rims of recently-crying eyes is a universal sign – and if she had not been a stranger, I would have offered a hug immediately. She held back for a moment, sizing me up to see if I was someone she could trust, as you do when you are about to ask for help. When she began to speak I saw her right hand go up to her heart and rest over it like a shield.

She said she was looking for something to help with anxiety, which has risen to the top ten inquiries we get every day in Wellness. We have many products that people have reported to have helped them. When I looked at her holding her heart, my thoughts went immediately to Motherwort, Leonurus cardiaca which translates to Lion Heart. When I first met this plant in the backyard of a very talented herbalist, Erin VanHee, I was enamored with her tall stalk and crown of small invisible thorns around each dainty bloom. The next year, when the plant volunteered in my yard, I felt blessed by the universe and just watching her grow made my heart feel protected by a fierce lion of luck. Just that morning I had contemplated harvesting some to make my own tincture, but wasn’t ready to cut her down.

I asked the sad woman if she had heard of Motherwort as I reached for a bottle of Herb Pharm’s liquid extract. I told her about this plant and what it meant to me and that some people have found it helpful to ease fears and grief. As I said the word “grief”, her eyes filled with tears, and she nodded her head. She reached out and pulled the small glass bottle to her chest, and then we did hug. Just another couple of crying strangers hugging in the aisles of Wellness. I mean, at this point is it even a workday if I don’t wipe a few tears away?

The gal and I exchanged a few more words and she left. I’d never seen her before or since, so I won’t ever know if she found Motherwort to be helpful for whatever grief was hurting her heart. What I do know, is that somehow, she followed a thread of thought to the Co-op on a day when she needed something more than just a herbal remedy for anxiety. Google and Amazon could have given her both the info and the product, but instead, she walked into our wonky 1919 building with unreliable temperatures and pockmarked floors because she needed to connect with a human that wouldn’t think it odd to believe a plant could bring solace.

I don’t imagine that the group of founding Co-op people could ever have imagined the impact their dreams would someday have on a community. Maybe they just thought “wouldn’t it be great to buy organic beans?” Maybe they sometimes were able to glimpse the potential of a diverse group of people just gathering together for the sake of simple living and deeply loving in a really gorgeous corner of the world. Maybe they did allow themselves to fathom how vast the web they wove would reach once folks decided to shift some priorities, literally into thousands of homes and hearts.

To Bev and Todd, Beth and Cheryl, Marianna and Sherry, and all the other people who started the spinning, who repaired the rips and found new anchors when winds wreaked havoc: a very sincere “Thank You.” Because of you, I get to spend my days surrounded by people who are weirdly wonderful in familiar and new ways. May all your showers be just spicy enough to get your day going and as the Doctor himself proclaims on his label, “In all we do, let us be generous, fair and loving to Spaceship Earth and all its inhabitants. For we are All-One or None!”

Bronner's Butt