Sunday Drive: The Shape It Took
Main Street is what people can see now: the new address, the finished room, the beautiful part.
The room is beautiful. The road here was not.
2025 ended. But there is still a lot of residue.
It was one of the hardest years of my life. No use dressing that up. There was death, and then there were other losses that felt like their own kind of death—personal, professional, and everything in between.
There were misunderstandings that seemed to repeat themselves. People changed. Circumstances changed.
So did I.
By then, I was already tired, already carrying so much—literally and figuratively.
Meeting Street became its own kind of weight. Something heavy had settled over that place and never seemed to lift. I gave it far more than I ever got back—financially, mentally, physically. By the end, it was wearing me down. I knew I had to get out.
Leaving was necessary. The way that chapter ended was still jarring. And even after I left, Meeting Street wasn’t entirely finished with me. For months, that chapter still hung over me while I was trying to move forward. Eventually, it lifted.
For a little while, I was somewhere in between—finished with one chapter, not yet sure what shape the next one would take.
I wanted Main Street for a long time. I always knew Preserve would be there. I just didn’t know the route or how fast things could move.
Then, somehow I was there.
Scared as hell.
For such a quaint space, it asked a lot of me.
But I believed in myself. I believed in Preserve.
So I took all the strength I had at the time and built it again.
It’s so much deeper than selling clothes. It’s more about a feeling I’m trying to convey.
The shop is quieter now. More rooted. More certain. The clothing, old photographs, family stories, my borrowed button-downs, my handmade candles, newspaper clippings, wax seals, and pieces of South Carolina are finally speaking the same language.
Mine.
Preserve usually meets people before I do. Some form an idea of the woman behind it.
Then I appear.
A few have been surprised to find a Black woman behind Preserve. Some have said so plainly.
I don’t know what they imagined. I just know what I built, and I love sharing it with everyone willing to discover it.
I’ve always done things a little differently. I’ve always listened widely, loved widely, and gravitated toward people and ideas that didn’t all look or sound the same.
Five years in, I trust my eye. I am more careful about what gets access to Preserve and who gets access to me.
I came into this business softer than I am today. Where I am now requires a different version of me.
As always, the story is in the music.
Listen & take the long way.
—Shikila