For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this unique ability to remember and recite numbers really, really well. It’s a fairly mundane trait, and I don’t understand why, but I can remember numbers better than I can remember pretty well anything else. Phone numbers, tag numbers, my passport number, ALL of my credit cards, my dad’s driver’s license number… you get it. I wouldn’t call it a superpower, but it may be the single most handy thing my brain does. And if for nothing else, it’s a decent party trick.
And if that weren’t dull enough, I’ve also had this habit of finding patterns or meanings in numbers. Not that numbers always have a ‘meaning’; more a curiosity. If I rearrange numbers on a license plate, what would it be, an even number away from mine or odd? That guy has the same prefix in his phone number as this guy but a different area code. Or how zip codes work in our beloved postal service. It doesn’t directly help me memorize them, though interesting to know how they’re structured.
When I was a kid, the last four digits of my mom’s office number was 4428. When she first told me what it was, her mnemonic device was “four four two of those make eight”. I can hear her say it now. I actually just checked to see if it was still an active number for that company, and it is. I might call her old extension just to see who picks up. Mom hasn’t worked there in nearly twenty years, and I’ve not committed her current office number to memory since she has a cell phone.
Will I run out of space in my mind for numbers? Different conversation, I think.
Anyway, the other night, my wife, Amanda, asked me “What if numbers had personalities?” After I IMMEDIATELY posted it on Threads like I do all of her off-the-wall thoughts, I have not stopped thinking about it. Obviously, she was just being funny, but it started a line of thought that hasn’t really ended. Not the personality part, exactly, because that’s absolutely ridiculous, but the realization of the underlying possibility of such a concept.
I don’t think personalities are attached to numbers. Or maybe they are. I don’t know. But exploring the idea that a kind of numerical duality could exist has been fun over the last few days.
What if numbers, fixed and factual also have a meaning apart from their ‘factual meaning’, and it only exists because we become aware of it? I don’t know if things change when we notice them, or if we just finally catch up to what was already there. I also realize that ‘factual meaning’ may not have any actual meaning, but you get what I’m saying. Either way, just as dull as being able to tell you Michael Lane’s phone number.
Parlor has had a tremendous cycle of growth over the last couple of years. Not speaking just financially, but physically too. We have been in our space downtown for more than two years. Honestly, I attribute a lot of that growth to our physical space downtown. I can remember back during Covid, when everyone was moving to working from home, we did the exact opposite. Corbin and I rented a little office just the two of us. When I say rented an “office,” I mean we rented a 12×15 room together in a building with half a dozen other people. It was the two of us and an intern in that little space. Don’t know how we did it to be honest. My office where I’m writing this is bigger than that and there’s so much stuff in here I feel like the floor may fall in at any minute.
It was in that first little office in 2020 that Corbin and I had sat down and mapped out exactly what I wanted Parlor to become. Down to the people in positions that didn’t exist. I had a semi-clear vision for where I wanted to go. Building processes and procedures when you’re a party of one seems really stupid, but I knew what I wanted. More than anything, I wanted people to buy in to what Parlor was, what it stood for, and what it would be. I realize that not everyone carries the same weight as the business owner, but watching someone come alongside you to carry the torch with you is the most rewarding thing I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing. I genuinely love the people that I work with at Parlor.
Today is January 12, no 13th. Rewind back to October of last year. By then, we had already moved into a temporary space because we were bursting at the seams in our office on Meadows Street. Everyone was stepping over each other. We had zero storage. You wouldn’t think we’d need much, but I also have a bad habit of keeping the boxes for every Apple device I’ve ever owned. Listen, it increases the resale value when I get rid of it. Plank and speck.
I had the crew, we had the business, the thing we were missing was a home. Somewhere along the way, I started to feel a bit like a nomad. I still have boxes in my office I haven’t unpacked, and next month will make a year since we moved into that temporary space. We tossed around the idea of staying where we were, but it never really felt viable long-term. I started looking for a place Parlor could actually call home. Something that was ours. Something that fit our character. Something that would add value; not just to us, but to our community too.
I had looked at a few, nothing super exciting. Many overpriced. (People just make up numbers, I think. I should know. I’m a numbers guy. I literally know all the numbers.) A couple got pulled from market before I could put in an offer. At some point, you stop looking for more space and start looking for the right one. There was one.
I had looked at this building once before and nothing really stood out to me other than the fact that it was nothing less than decrepit. The amount of work that this building needed was ASTOUNDING. I went back through the building with my friend Sara Brown. Great realtor, better friend. A year had passed since I had last been in the building. Nothing had changed. The same asbestos was still on the floor. The same knob and tube panel was in the wall. The same daylight showed through in places it wasn’t supposed to. Literally nothing about this building screamed buy me except the fact that it was the worst building on the best street in downtown. After many conversations, prayers, offers, headache, we went under contract.
I also showed it to my wife and employees after we went under contract. Amanda literally asked me if she should get a job. That’s how much work it needed. As I’m writing this, I think of the time I sat in my first office and mapped all this out. The vision has often outweighed what’s immediately in front of me. It’s not always practical. More often than not, it’s uncomfortable. But usually consistent.
When we were under contract, and really, even before I made an offer, I thought about the building constantly. Was it the right decision? Was this the next step? Was I forcing something to happen just because I wanted it to? I thought long and hard about what it meant to me, for my family, for my team. I prayed about it. Sought counsel. Lost a little sleep; equal parts fear and excitement. Knowing it was the right decision mattered to me more than anything.
I don’t remember at which point exactly it was that I made the connection, other than it was just before we signed the papers. And once I made the connection, I didn’t tell anyone about it until after the deal was done. Not the team. Not Mike. No one. Well, maybe Amanda, because I tell her everything. But no one else. It was personal. It was like the period at the end of the sentence for me. Confirmation that it was exactly the space we were supposed to be.
One day, while walking by the building, I looked up at the numbers painted on the transom window above the door. They had been there for as long as I could tell. The building was built in 1918 and had a new brick façade put on sometime in the ‘70s. I’ve found in old photos the numbers above the door. But nothing to tell me definitively when they were put up. I don’t know exactly when they were first painted onto the glass, and I don’t really need to. The numbers always existed. But of course, they did. It was the address. They couldn’t have been anything else.
Seeing as how I have this weird relationship with numbers, I wanted to know what those numbers were for. Yeah, it was the factual address, but what was the meaning? As my wife would ask, “what was their personality?” Dork.
I went through a myriad of ideas to try to make a connection to this number. Was there a historical significance? Could I tie it to an old address from my childhood? Almost. How can I tie it to Parlor? Architectural symbolism, quantum physics, periodic table, the page number of random books… Albeit short, I’m telling you, I battled for a minute.
At some point, I stopped trying to make it clever. I was trying to make it something that justified buying the building, maybe? Something that made the number impressive instead of just true. If the numerical duality (if that’s even a thing) is true, then I was approaching it wrong. I kept assuming meaning had to be constructed, discovered or created. But the harder I tried to force it, the less authentic it felt.
There’s a reason we’re called Parlor. Some of you know it, some of you don’t. I’ll probably write about it in another post. Not this one. Mostly because it’s late, and I’ve already moved from my office downtown, to my office at home, to now, my bed, with my wife and our dog snoring next to me. She sleeps fully clothed. (Amanda. Not the dog.) I’m talking, Sweatpants. Long sleeve shirt. Sometimes a sweater. Which feels… aggressive.
Anyway.
Parlor has always been a group of like-minded, creative people. We push ourselves, sometimes just for the sake of pushing ourselves. That’s probably another post too. But lately, when I think about creativity, there’s something that keeps presenting itself. Truth is, it’s always been there, I’ve just recently become aware of the fact. All of creation, the noun, started with creation, the verb. Intentional creation at that.
I don’t think I’d ever really considered God as a Creative before. The Creator, sure. But not as a ‘Creative’. How often do people think of God as being a ‘Creative’? Maybe a lot, I don’t know. I just have started recently. What’s His favorite color? I think it’s green. And I don’t say that because my favorite color is green, though I do enjoy the coincidence. I think there is plenty of evidence for this argument. But neither here nor there.
It’s humbling to realize the privilege in participation. To be a creative created by the Creator is a pleasure.
The number is 116 if you’re wondering. That’s the address. 116 E. Meadows St in downtown Vidalia. Shocking reveal, I know. I’ve thought about this number more than most people ever will.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Colossians 1:16