I’m barely back from a grueling week at the Buyers Market of American Craft show in Philadelphia. The BMAC is a wholesale show for contemporary American handcraft. If your work fits this description, and you want to wholesale, this is probably THE show you want to be in down the road. I was thrilled to jury in five years ago (my second year in business) and I’ve learned a lot since then. The show has been a critical factor in growing my business.
Great changes are in store for me in the year ahead, but I'll save that til I've cogitated more....
There are so many things buzzing my head about the show, and I’ll be doing a slow-release of them over the weeks and months ahead. Here are a few non-show moments, though, that were out of the ordinary.
I had to call my darlin’ husband at 4 a.m. to cry on his shoulder. It was the only time I was able to get a hold of him to talk about something really important. He listened patiently and wholeheartedly, and gave me excellent insight. I think a small part of true love must be having a partner you can call at 4 a.m. and they will listen. (My darlin’ husband says to qualify that as “you can OCCASIONALLY call them at 4 a.m. ….)
My mom called late one evening to tell me that she was okay and there was really, truly no need for me to come home to be with her. She was deeply moved that I’d considered cutting out of the show, and then considered going home directly after the show. We said many kind and loving things to each other in the dark as we both lay in our beds a thousand miles apart.
She has found the thing she needed to remember in all of this. She said that she has been surrounded by love since an hour after she fell. (She was alone for an hour or so til my dad returned and found her.) She said the doctor, the nursing staff, her friends, her family, her sons and daughters and husband, had never left her side for a minute. She said, “I never dreamed I was loved that much.”
My oldest brother sat at the hospital with her all night, and in the dark told her something surprising, that he’d once thought about being a nurse. (And she said he’d make a very good one.) It’s something not one person in my family would ever have guessed of this brusque, rough 48-year old man who handles a backhoe like a surgeon’s scalpel.
She told me many more stories of those who had showed up, then said to me, “I know you love me, and I know what you were willing to do to help me, and you do NOT need to do anything else, ever again, to prove that you do. Because I KNOW you do.”
It was an amazing gift. She gave me permission to do my show and take care of my business with a clear conscious and a calm heart.
So in the end, my mom’s accident has brought many gifts and acts of love to light. Which is all she needed to put a new face on all this.
And all any of us need to get through this wild and lovely journey called life.
