Weaving The Dream

More than twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to spend three weeks in August at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine, while my mother and husband took care of our three sons, who were between the ages of eighteen months and six years.  It was a special time for me to explore my creativity after constant childcare since the birth of the first of our sons.

One night, I entered the women’s bathroom and found a woman at least ten years older than me, standing over the sink and crying.  When I asked her what was wrong, she told me that that day would have been her son’s 20th birthday but he had died several years ago in a car accident.  I didn’t know what to say so I stood and listened to her tell the story.  And, of course, I felt the fear that every mother fears when she hears stories like this—what if?

I have a nephew who, with his wife, lost his child to a rare disease before she had a chance to reach her first birthday.  Attending the funeral, I watched the mother grieve and thought—why?

I have a friend who, as a single mom, lost her only child, a son, to cancer when he was in his teens.  Her journey through grief has been one of desperate courage in the midst of pain and depression.  And I wonder—how?

When we give birth to our children, we give birth to hopes and dreams and possibilities.  But we also give birth to our worst nightmares and to nights of constant worry.  To crossed fingers and endless prayers.  And to all the whys and hows and what ifs.

Once we give birth, become mothers, we are always mothers.  There is never an end.  It is who we are for the rest of our lives.  Even when those we mother are gone before us.

Today is Mother’s Day when, if we are lucky, our children send cards or call to wish us Happy Mother’s Day. 

But what do we say to those mothers whose children are gone?  Happy Mother’s Day seems wrong somehow.  And yet they remain mothers.  Mothers who need to be recognized and honored for the love they gave and for the love they still bear.  Mothers who need to be held and supported as they remember the sons and daughters they have lost to illness, violence, and war.

Being a mother—or a father—takes great courage in today’s world.  And great love.

Here’s to all the mothers on Mother’s Day.

Part of the joy of celebrating a new year is letting go of and saying goodbye to the old year, especially if that year has been particularly challenging.The year both my mother and grandfather died, and the year my husband’s father and then mother died were two years I remember being particularly glad to say good bye to, embracing the following New Years with a sense of hope and relief.

“Change can come on tiptoe, Love is where it starts…”

Barbara Streisand sang Marvin Hamlisch’s tune from the DJ’s speakers as my oldest son, Stephen held me and moved me around the dance floor.

Finally, I thought, I get to dance with my son, even though I had to wait until he was 30 and at his wedding reception to get to do it.

But as he twirled me and spun me, and as I sang the words of the song to him, I realized we had danced together before. Only I did the twirling, holding his small body in my arms, his pajama-clad feet barely reaching my waist, as I sang nursery rhymes to him to ease him into sleep.

“Ordinary miracles, Happen all around, Just by giving and receiving, Comes belonging and believing…”

Where did the time go?  Now, here he was, spinning me, amidst a circle of friends and family, each group marking a stage of Stephen’s life.  His childhood friend, Jesse, who spent so much time in our house each summer he was like an adopted fourth son.  Stephen’s friends from college, with whom he became more steadily himself.  His colleagues at work, a couple of who were the matchmakers for he and his new wife, Mindy.  And, finally, the new circle of friends and family that Mindy brings into his life.

“Every sun that rises, Never rose before, Each new day leads the way, Through a different door…”

And as we sat an hour earlier in the melting Virginia sun, watching Stephen and Mindy say their vows, I wondered, when did Bob and I move through this door?  And where did the days go that led us to be celebrating not only Stephen and Mindy’s wedding that day but Bob’s and my 34th wedding anniversary as well?  How did we get from three small pajama-clad boys who needed singing to sleep to three tall young men in tuxes?  Wow!

And yet, here we were.  Stephen, standing before us holding Mindy’s hands, promising to love her, just as Bob had promised to love me, while his two brothers along with two other friends stood as groomsmen.

Ordinary miracles.  Often our children may seem more ordinary than miraculous but then there are the moments, like the sudden slumping of an infant’s body against my shoulder into sleep, or like that Saturday evening, when I was held by my now-adult son, that we know…

“No lightning bolt or clap of thunder, Only joy and quiet wonder, Endless possibilities, Right before our eyes, Oh, see the way a miracle multiplies…”

Who would have thought that a wedding 34 years ago would lead to this?  A wedding anniversary, three grown handsome, healthy sons, and the wedding of our oldest to a lovely young woman who loves and supports our son.   We could only imagine.  And when by cooperation of the Fates, it happens? 

Ordinary miracles!

Went out to the mailbox yesterday, little expecting that there was a ticking bomb inside.

OK, maybe that is a little dramatic, but I am a writer and what was in that mailbox is something every writer dreads…a letter of rejection.

This letter, standard in its form—sorry, but you aren’t for us, sure you will find an appropriate home, etc. etc.—was from a well-respected agency who had asked to look at the entire manuscript of my fantasy novel.  I was so hopeful.  After all, how many times do we get that far in the process?

Rejection in any form is a hard thing to take.  I know.  While my weaving and writing have been accepted and purchased by the best, my weaving and writing have also been rejected by the best for almost 15 years—by craft show juries for the best craft shows (even after being in them previously, always a puzzler), by craft galleries and museum shops buyers, by well-to-do private customers, and by those adorably confusing and unpredictable agents and editors.

Rejection, as hard to take as it sometimes is, is just the nature of the business.  In fact, it is the nature of life. And yet, we always wonder why?  Why don’t they like me?  Why don’t they like my work?  Why, why, why…?

If we can move past the place of curling into a ball and chanting,  “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m going to eat some worms!” then we can use those rejections, personal or professional, for evaluation, motivation, and action.

First, we can check to make sure that we are bringing the best of who we are and what we do to our relationships, our creativity, and our work.  Then, we need to remember and understand an oft forgotten truth that is really difficult for some of us to swallow.  Repeat after me, “Not everyone is going to love me, my work, or my creative expressions.”  Did you choke on that a bit?  Take a swallow of water.

Sorry, that is just the way it is, AND that is what makes life so grand and exciting.  Everyone is different and has different tastes and desires and needs.  The challenge, yes, challenge, is to find the match to who we are and what we have to offer while not compromising the essence of our work or ourselves.

So we use the fact that this lover, this employer, this agent/editor doesn’t like who we are or what we have to offer to take action to find the one who does.  As sales and motivational leaders like Tony Robbins remind us, each “no” brings us that much closer to the “yes”.  So, we use the rejection as a catalyst, as a kick in the pants to get moving onto the next candidate in our search for true love, fortune, and fame.  That way, instead of blowing us, and our self-esteem, into smithereens, we cut that colored wire of rejection and totally disarm the whole thing.

So, yesterday, after doing the curling into a ball and chanting routine for a few minutes, I sat down at my computer and did some networking with authors and publishers who will be at Book Expo America which I am planning to attend, and even set up an appointment with a publisher.  I used that blasted letter to get me moving on to the next possibility.  I totally disarmed that letter.

I am still thinking of putting it in the freezer to chill off, though.  Just in case…
 

It is a bright Sunday spring morning.  Bob and I take Duncan for our weekly walk at a nearby wildlife preserve.  The morning perambulation will be followed by a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and sausage cooked and served by Bob.

As usual, Duncan stops every few feet to sniff at bush and branch, and to leave his own pungent note.  Unfortunately, one of his off-the-path investigations nets him a cluster of burdock burrs in his right front leg.

Arrggh!  The thing we hate most!  Duncan is a collie with long hair.  And collies are sensitive, especially this collie, whom we adopted from a shelter after he had been left on a chain for nine months with minimal grooming.  Matted hair does not a happy dog make.

After ten years of loving and patient grooming, Duncan still whines, yips, and barks at Bob before, during, and after the extensive combing and trimming.  Even with a steady supply of treats.

However, he has learned over the years that it is a far, far better thing to let us remove the burrs as soon as possible before they become even more entangled.  Sure, we could just take a pair of scissors and cut the burrs out but then I am not sure the punk look is really in this season for collies.  So he will stand or sit with dog-saintly forbearance while we remove burrs, because we have learned the secret (No, not that Secret.  This has more to do with the law of detraction than attraction.)

The secret?  To not pull the burr away from the dog, but to pull the dog, or the dog hair, away from the burr.  By holding onto the burr and gently pulling the hair away from the burr strand by strand, the snarl comes undone and the burr releases its grip.  Pulling on a burr just entangles it in the hair even more and makes a dog growly.

This approach is similar to the one I use for dealing with tangles of yarns or threads.  Most people get a snarl or tangle in something, be it thread, hair, relationships, or creative project, and they just pull and tug and even yank, hoping that sheer force will bring the desired result.   Instead the snarls and tangles get tighter and more resistant and someone or something gets hurt.

As a weaver, who has had to untangle many snarls of yarns and even fine threads, I have learned that gently teasing tangles open from several angles will loosen the knots enough for me to follow a thread end back through to the source of the problem.  Pretty soon, voila, a nicely rolled ball of yarn instead of a nasty nest of knots.

Untangling anything, whether it is burr-matted hair, snarled yarn, a messy relationship, or a creative problem, requires a Zen kind of patience.  I have to be willing to sit patiently in the moment following the problem back to its source, loosening and separating the threads of thoughts, feelings, and actions, loop by loop, hair by hair, idea by idea, until things fall into place.

Untangling is a great meditative practice, and great way to approach a problem—if we can just slow down long enough.  The reward?  A ball of yarn that can be used instead of thrown away.  A relationship that is renewed.  A new approach or technique for creative action.

A happy dog who nuzzles you, tail wagging ecstatically, and barks, “Now where are those blueberry pancakes?”

This past weekend was my last craft show.

Wow!  I say that and then I want to put all kinds of qualifiers around it.  Like maybe it was the last craft show in Virginia.  Or maybe it was the last craft show for the foreseeable future.  After all, I have been exhibiting at craft shows, both wholesale and retail for 15 years. 

Putting an end to something we have invested a lot of time and energy into is difficult, especially when it is a relationship, business, or career.  Who we are, how we think the world sees us, and our source of challenge, growth, and fulfillment can get too tied up in things outside ourselves.

And I did put a lot of time and energy into growing the business.  I was office manager, marketing and sales person, and shipping clerk as well as designer and weaver.  I spent most of the 10 hours per day, at least six days a week winding warp, threading looms, weaving, and tying and re-tying fringe.  I often spent three or four nights before a show awake until 2 in the morning to finish work and ready it for my display, making sure seams were straight, threads were snipped, and labels applied.

While my business was successful enough to pay the business’s bills and make payments on the college loans my husband and I took out for our three sons, I never made enough of an income to support myself or anyone else.  My husband did that.  But the business, especially the shows, provided other benefits, usually intangible.

The craft show circuit provided a place of community, learning, and growth.  As a weaver and writer, it is too easy for me to isolate myself in my woodland studio and forget the world.  Going to shows in places like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, Sarasota, Boston, and Washington DC allowed me to move out into a world of new sights, sounds, and tastes, and meet new people.  The show circuit also forced me to learn the importance of niche marketing and not under-pricing your work, how to engage and understand the needs of your customer, and to get over my fears of driving in unfamiliar and heavily trafficked areas.

While at the shows, I discovered and acquired clothing, jewelry, gifts, and art to decorate my home that I would never have otherwise.

Being part of the show circuit also gave me an opportunity to spread my wings as a writer, as I wrote artist profiles and business articles for two different professional crafts business magazines and thereby acquired credentials to write for other publications.

Our sons learned the value of careers that don’t involve a 9-5 routine, that allow some measure of independence, and that value things like creativity, passion, and exploration.

Most of all, being part of the craft show community meant meeting and making friends of some incredible people, all with unique stories, a strong desire for independence, and a passion for fine crafts.

Also, through the experiences of the show circuit, I found myself encouraging others to explore their creativity as they stood in my booth and said “I am not creative,” which led to my study and practice of creativity coaching; I spent months and years weaving, giving me the inspiration and knowledge to write Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Lessons from the Loom; and I couldn’t help but see that though we all start with the same materials, the miracle that is the human brain allows us to create with those materials in defiantly unique ways.  And it is because of the gifts of these experiences that I am ready to grow a new career, a new business.

I will still travel to new places and meet new people, but now I will be sharing weavings of another sort—the weaving of words and events through writing and speaking and coaching.  I want to teach and share with others the magic of dreams, the passionate joy of creativity, and the mystical delight of connecting to the spiritual self.

Will I continue to weave and sell my weaving? Absolutely!  At conferences, workshops, online, and from my studio.  So don’t hesitate to email me if you want a shawl for meditation, or a scarf for your mother.  The weaving I do now will be custom—for you.  It will now just be part of all I do—not all I do.

So I walked out of the show on Sunday after packing up my booth with the help of my son and his fiancée, and I knew I was doing the right thing because I felt no regret, only excitement for new possibilities.  And immense gratefulness to a business and community that gave me so much. 

Why are beginnings so scary?

Some beginnings, of course, are scarier than others. Beginning a New Year is not so scary most of the time. Usually we are grateful to be alive and able to see in a New Year. Beginning a good meal, a new book, or a movie is seldom scary unless intentionally so.

But two beginnings are always scary - new relationships and new creative projects.

New relationships are scary because if they don’t work out someone might get hurt and that someone might be me!

New creative projects are scary because if they don’t work out - if no one likes them, buys them, understands them, etc, then someone might get hurt and that someone is always going to be the creator, i.e. ME!

And here I am beginning a blog - something that is about both a new relationship (with you) and a new creative project. Now how much scarier can you get than that?

Maybe that is the reason I kept finding more research to do, changing my mind about the focus, listening to one more teleseminar before birthing this baby (OK – having a baby is the ultimate really scary combination of new relationship and new creative project and I should know – I have had three!)

Beginning relationships and creative projects require at least two things: commitment and the willingness to risk being a fool. And this is why they are scary.

In today’s world, we can do, change, access most things quickly and easily. Here today, gone tomorrow. Making a commitment to stay with a relationship or a creative project (which is really just a relationship of another kind) requires being willing to give time to something to grow and change and succeed and fail and succeed again. Most of us either are unwilling to be patient at all since everything else seems to arrive at the push of a computer key, or we are only willing to be patient through one or two failings. Then it gets too painful or too costly in time, energy, or money, and we give up.

And, of course, most of us are unwilling to be seen as the fool. The Expert? Absolutely, see my hand in the air waving at you? But the Fool? Oh no, experience that kid-in-class-with-the-wrong-answer-so-the-other-kids-laugh-at-you feeling again? Unh-unh. Been there, done that.

And yet, if I don’t risk being the fool by being wrong or inept, if I’m not willing to make the commitment to allow growth and evolution, how will I ever enter a marriage, start a new business, write a book, make a new friend, post a blog?

So, here I am - the committed Fool, stepping off into the Blog Abyss.

Paula