Darya and Wayne: Two Perspectives on Bryn Mawr Bookstore
- Jul 1
- 3 min read
CV volunteer writer Chris Featherman recently met with two CV volunteers from Bryn Mawr Bookstore who have both found connection to place and community there.
-Laurie and Alexis
Darya Clark: Small Anchors in the City
On a rainy Thursday afternoon, Carole King’s voice spins softly from an old CD player in a quiet corner of Cambridge. Inside Bryn Mawr Bookstore—staffed entirely by volunteers for over fifty years so its profits can fund student scholarships—Darya Clark sorts through a new stack of academic donations. In her professional life, she works as a robotics engineer at a fast-paced startup. Volunteering through Cambridge Volunteers, she has found a deliberate, analog change of pace.
For Darya, a Thursday shift might start with ordering the math and science section she oversees—sorting boxes, pricing volumes, and organizing shelves. Later she might cover the register, chat with customers about their finds, or comb the aisles for ephemera—odd pins, old cookbooks, a thesis on bike lanes. It’s time she treasures, scheduled but unstructured, afforded by a rearranged work week. “It feels like a start to the weekend,” Darya says. “It just makes for so much joy.”
It’s a joy, she notes, sprung from possibilities beyond those found at work. “It’s nice to have autonomy and work on something that I care about existing,” Darya says, “without it feeling like there’s a lot of pressure for success.” Freed from performance metrics, her attention can open outward, often to her fellow volunteers. Many are older women who relish passing on bookstore lore and wryly debunking Darya’s admittedly romanticized visions of retirement. “At this point in my life, post-grad, getting to meet people not my age is a lot of fun. It’s cool to have that perspective from people who are at a different point in their lives.”
These intergenerational connections, alongside her weekly shifts, have reshaped Darya’s understanding of civic engagement. “It’s not like big and loud community building,” she explains, noting that these quiet spaces exist across the city for anyone looking to anchor themselves in Cambridge. For her, volunteering is much like the bookstore’s honeycombed aisles: a space of sorted shelves and shared finds, of books and time, gifted. It is an experience of what she calls “subtle pleasantness,” one that across each Thursday shift quietly strengthens her relationship to the city.
Wayne Vargas: “I Just Like to Be Useful"
Down in the basement of Bryn Mawr Bookstore in West Cambridge, Wayne Vargas spent two hours of a recent shift dragging countless boxes of donated books across the floor. Nobody asked him to. In a volunteer-run shop famous for its unhurried pace, Wayne brings his own momentum. “If I’m not working, I feel like I’m being dishonest,” he says, tracing his rigid work ethic back to his mother.
Learning to pace himself has been a lesson in patience for the 70-year-old. “I can't believe I'm old,” says Wayne, tugging on a beard that trends Victorian in both style and scope. “I don't see myself as old!” For half a century, he worked odd jobs by day so he could act in community theater by night. Coming to Bryn Mawr’s loose and serene environment eight months ago initially made him feel like a fish out of water—a feeling he’s overcome by finding his own rhythm.
Though he’s not too keen on small talk, Wayne delights in chatting with customers about fiction and theater as much as he does restoring order to the store’s crowded and popular shelves on those subjects. Ask him about a recent literary bestseller, and he’ll grinningly boast he’s never heard of it. But if a customer wants to debate a classic text, he will gladly trade insights for an afternoon. Bryn Mawr is his stage.
For Wayne, seeking the spotlight is really a search for connection—to others and to his community. When a sudden housing displacement brought him to Cambridge last fall, his world shrank to the four walls of a small Central Square room, filled only with his own books. Wanting more out of his days, he turned to Cambridge Volunteers. The bookstore floor gave an old ensemble actor a vital place to channel his energy and his lifelong expertise—to be useful.
And to him that means more than unpacking boxes and sorting clumsily browsed shelves. “I just like making connections,” Wayne says, stroking his beard and grinning wryly. “I like talking to people.”
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Photos and text: Chris Featherman
We are indebted to Chris, Wayne, Darya and the team at Bryn Mawr Book Store for this Volunteer Spotlight.
You can help Cambridge Volunteers connect more volunteers like Darya and Wayne with the local nonprofits that need them. Support local volunteerism with a contribution today at www.cambridgevolunteers.org/donate.