As we build towards making Dumaguete a City of Stories, let me share my own:
When I was little, I read through every book in my childhood library. In college, I spent most of my breaks in the company of books. After that, I would spend hours scouring for books in thrift shops, searching for my next read.
There was that time my now husband, Ernest Acar, proposed to me in a bookstore; and then we got married in a library. There were probably other venue options, places to go for my breaks, but the bookstores, the libraries served as markers, leading to LibrAria.
Little did I know, that young girl would one day open a bookstore, and would help bring a literary festival to life.
I didn’t always pursue books, although literature was one of my options in college. But I chose to go to the University of the Philippines to pursue a degree in Fine Arts instead. The timelines are not linear, but somewhere in the middle of my college gap years, during and after, I pursued music, fashion and retail, graphic design, and spent more than 10 years in each of these chapters. To me these were all various media where I could express my art, and tell stories.
And then another chapter began when I became a mother to my daughters Aria, and Elora. They are 10 and seven years old now. We would read every day, and eventually start homeschooling. It was during our homeschool years that I began to rediscover reading, great literature, and what education means to me.
Then the pandemic happened, and the rise of online shopping via Instagram began, and I amassed even more books for Aria and Elora’s homeschool library, which led to a decluttering via my own Instagram shop which, on a whim, I decided to call LibrAria.
Meanwhile, our story as a family was unfolding. While we were homeschooling, there was an increasing, insistent urge for exploring the world around us, outside of our four walls, outside of the city of concrete we lived in.
I had been visiting Dumaguete with Ernest since 2009, and we always talked about living here. We longed to be closer to the sea and the mountains.
And we finally took that leap in 2022, bringing only five boxes of family and household belongings, but at least 18 boxes of books, with the intent of continuing the online store from our home.
But then we found this community, 58 E.J. Blanco, now known as Arts & Design Collective Dumaguete. And in December 2022, we opened our gray door. That is LibrAria Dumaguete.
What began as almost accidental turned into something more purposeful. I was just looking for a space to put my books in, but instead found a place to ground my feet on, a community to grow with.
I did not realize how much we need a living, breathing bookstore here in Dumaguete that students and families can go to, and that can help foster the love for reading.
We started events like poetry reading, and the Silent Book Club. I met many writers like Ian Rosales Casocot, Angela Gabrielle Fabunan, and fell in love with the creative community. I guess you could say I am nadagit in love and literature.
It is not easy having a bookshop, and sometimes I question why I am doing this. Sometimes I would do storytelling with other kids who no longer read. I ask them what their favorite book is, and there are no responses. But then there are also moments when a kid would walk into the bookshop, his eyes would light up, he would immediately pick up a book, and no one would dare interrupt as he reads.
It is these moments that keep me going. And I remember little me in my room, reading Berenstain Bears, Archie Comics, Nancy Drew.
It is through these experiences that chapters are formed, stories are told and written. The people beside you, the places around you, the wind and waves that envelope us hold stories that have been, or have yet to be written. (Patrice Gayle Dizon-Acar)
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Gayle Acar is the proprietor of LibrAria Books, located at the Arts & Design Collective Dumaguete at 58 EJ Blanco Drive.
