Vendor Spotlight

Lisa A. wants more community for us all

BY JUSTIN WAGNER

“Get out your damn car, hang up, and read the paper,” said Contributor vendor Lisa A., laughing as she threads the lettering on a vivid, hand-crafted sign.

“I don’t know, that’s gonna be my next sign, I think. I don’t wanna piss people off. I think it’s funny, but you never know.”

Signs are something of a trademark for Abell, who festoons her selling spot with homespun designs and text — taking care to show up in colorful attire and a daisy sun hat dressed with purple flowers.

“I tried putting other things on it, but nope, it’s gotta be those flowers,” she said. “I grew up in the theater. I treat it as street theater, a little bit.”

But for Abell, the bright colors and deliberate theatrics are more than showmanship. They are an offer to the ever-distracted city: Come and join your community.

“Community isn’t something we get to have as much, in part because of the car,” Abell explained. “The newspaper creates an intersection where there is a potential for developing community. The newspaper helps create community.”

Abell noted that conveniences inherent to middle and upper-class city life — smartphones and the car, in particular — inhibit face-to-face interaction on the street. Abell uses her time selling to reclaim the street as a platform for community interaction, and tries to spark friendly connections wherever she can.

She finds that for most, that moment of connection with a stranger is as surprising as it is welcome.

“At first [people are] nervous, then when I wave and smile and speak intelligently, they relax, and then they’re kind of confused,” she said with a chuckle. “I think it’s a great way for people to humanize each other.”

Having experience with depression, Abell finds that humanization and sense of community enriching and restorative, she said. It’s why she decided to start selling The Contributor earlier this year after first learning about it as a customer.

Abell has found that the rigors of a typical job can be dehumanizing and lonely — while doable for some, these rigors can leave us exhausted and disconnected from one another. Working on her own terms as a vendor has represented a welcome change of pace, she said.

“It affords wonderful autonomy that immediately brought my self-esteem up,” she said. “The fact that people are tipping me for bothering to give them local information and that they want to see me succeed is just fantastic.”

“So many of us were cashiers at a crappy little place, or a janitor, we did all the bootson-the-ground, unpaid, low-pay work. Most of us did at some point in our lives. Not just a teenager, but for years,” she said. “To have a job where I’m valued and I can value myself the way I know I need to in order to get out there every day is fantastic.”

Seeing how face-to-face interaction has helped her build a strong community at her spot in such a short time, Abell thinks the city could benefit from replicating that — little by little, one person at a time.

“I want to ask everyone to take the opportunity with their vendor to think about ways to make stronger community in their neighborhood,” Abell said.

“I don’t want people to feel like they have to pity us. It’s more like, ‘how can you include us?’ We may or may not have that many differences between you and me.”