“A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.” – Author Unknown
This week I traveled to Chicago for a myeloma event and met up with some folks I have met before, and thoroughly enjoying that, as I always do. I traveled with a fellow MMer I met the last time on one of these excursions who lives in Sacramento.
When we arrived we waited 40 minutes for the hotel shuttle that was supposedly 5 minutes away from our hotel and so my bright idea was to bail on that and take a cab. We told the cab driver the hotel and he took off without a word. 20 minutes into our drive, getting stuck in traffic because of VP Joe Biden’s motorcade, I said, “How is it this is 5 minutes from the airport?” Sure enough, we ventured into the hotel of the same name after paying a $50 cab ride to discover that is not the location. ARGH! So back into another cab to the correct locale, through the city, traffic, etc. We were mostly annoyed we were cutting into our “nap” time. We had been up since 3 am to catch a 6 am flight and both had hoped to take a nap before the dinner. But… I did really enjoy seeing Chicago, in the daylight hours, without the cold and snow!
BlueHeron Boucle
The reason I needed a nap was that I had only garnered about 2 hours sleep before leaving. That was due to the fact I was frantically try to finish a bunch of scarves for my local yarn shoppe to take to the Vogue Knitting Show in Los Angeles. I had promised her I would have some for her booth display there. Using yarns she sells (which are also the ones I love) to display and see what kind of response she gets from strangers seeing them and feeling them. I was behind on this for a few reasons, but mostly in the weeks before, I was dealing with Kip’s failing health and then grieving for our loss of him. It was, what it was. 
But I pulled it off. Not my best work – some old pieces I had not fallen in love with, but were nice and needed finishing up. Some new pieces I rushed to get done that were very cool. Then I sent my own (not for sale). My hope is that people will make orders buying the yarn from Anna with the colors they like and so not having a large inventory to sell won’t be a problem. And capitalizing on the fact I’m a single artist in a cottage industry and each one is unique. I would have liked to join them on this trip just to see what it was like and even do some weaving while I was there to attract some customers to Anna’s display. Next time…
BlueHeron Yarns she was taking with her
While on the return flight, it was full, late, we were tired and I was sandwiched between two line backer sized men. One was a Canadian business man, who told me to elbow him if he started snoring. This of course began a conversation and neither of us took our nap on the 4 hour flight to Sacramento. He was intriguing and a very successful business man. We talked politics, healthcare, economics, children, marriage, business, cancer, etc. I find I can meet the most amazing people in my travels and generally enjoy the opportunity to be enlightened, inspired, or in some cases offering advice and perspective. In this case, he was giving it to me, on my business. Getting me to think bigger and outside the box a bit, or my comfort zone. I really loved it.
When I walked in the door with my suitcase around 12:30 am in the morning, in the dark, I was suddenly clobbered with the fact that Kip wouldn’t be popping up out of the dark to come over with his sleepy self, wagging his tail, to welcome me home. Probably because I was tired, and probably just the reality of my life without him, before I even got through the door my eyes were welling up with tears and all that I had experienced over the last few days disappeared, and I just felt sad. I went to bed and laid there, exhausted, wide awake, for a long time, coming to terms with it all. Or at least trying to.
Tomorrow I have a dry run of Weaving at the Winery. An event that Dena has pulled off with our new Vintner friends at The Old Sugar Mill. It has turned into an event that started out with Todd Taylor Winery and grew to the entire sugar mill. Our date is actually in October, but we want to go and set up, see our space parameters and get a feel for how it will go, so that it goes really well. I have one scarf on my small loom that I need to finish up today and then warp something for tomorrow. Then I’ll be needing to weave like a maniac before the event so I might have some inventory to sell! In the middle of all of that, we have a check up in Little Rock and then our cruise at the end of the month. October is shaping up to be as busy as September, August, July, June, May… and I’m grateful. It helps get me going in the mornings and keep my spirits high.
Life is an experience, and the experiences are your’s for the making. It is often a myriad of emotions. With great joy, I have twinges of sadness mingled in. Like seeing a beautiful young dog meeting it’s owner at the airport when I arrived. Smiling to see how happy he was, how beautiful he was, those moments I understand so well, and realizing that for now, I won’t have those with Kip anymore. But then realizing, again, I had so many with him and to not negate all that we shared, and just enjoy what I was witnessing between a dog and his owner.
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” – Joseph Campbell
There is little in life for me now that isn’t a conglomeration of emotions all rolled up into one. It’s life. It’s OK. Happy that my children are flourishing – but without me! 🙂 We all know what I’m talking about. We can choose where to put our focus, while honoring those little twinges of wishing for this or that. Being grateful that we have had them at all and experiencing the memories and remembering how lucky we truly are even if we might have those pity party moments. I don’t mind feeling sorry for myself at times. I just don’t want it to define my life or to ruin it. Always a balance. We still can have those extraordinarily great feelings, if we only choose to. It’s a work in progress… Remember though, to enjoy the scenery along the detour of life. It is in these moments that most amazing and unexpected things can and do happen. – EMBRACE THE DETOURS!
