Do What You Love......

It's spring and time to lighten up a little/completely.  I've thought and over thought my inside story but there is so much more to me than all of that.  When asked what I do, I say "I make things..."   because that is the truth of it.  I love to make. I love the term MAKER.....It sounds so much fancier than "I make things".  Goodness it sounds like a real job and to me that is what the making is all about.... to be able to create the business and life I desire, with my own hands.  Made by me....

I have been a little bit in hibernation this winter.  I felt badly about it  but, sometimes it's just what you have to do to reset...... I may have wallowed and wondered for a short bit but what else I did was  read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and it was the perfect antidote to my hinbernationess.   It also prompted me to figure and put into writing, the core values of my maker's world and my Wildflower 57 business and this is what I came up with..mostly, I don't ever want anything else....and these are my driving core beliefs that I will use to guide me going forward.....

1.  Figure out what you and your business are about.  Be Clear about that.   And then you can do whatever you want with it, change your designs , change the things you make, change your approach and marketing. Any of it. But Know what you are about.....My business is based on the love of faded, colorful, softly made things that remind me of Prairies, Farms,Mountains, Open Spaces, sweet florals, torn whites, bits, pieces  and the freedom to be who I am...Tattered and Tangled..Unfettered....Everything comes from those things....

2.  Stay in your lane......Don't worry about what ANYONE else is doing....there will be many people who make stuff that is similar to yours, or something you had ready to try.   As long as you know what you are about, you know you aren't copying.  NOW...don't take this to mean you can copy a name, steal a picture, encroach on trademarked designs....what that means to me is to not always worry about trying to beat out or out do anyone else who may be close to your style or vision (believe me, this happens and it's not always intentional, sometimes it is ..and that is a different story when trademarks and copyrights are exploited )..  But if you keep your eyes forward, stay in your lane and focus on your intentions and keep rule #1 in your heart....You will be okay.  

3. Support each other.  Don't get caught up in the stuff that will undo you.  This comes from ..big sigh here.... experience.   I've been a participant/ guilty of reacting to what feels like someone trying to steal my ideas and projects. I've been accused of stealing other people's ideas and projects. I've been reactive and possesive . I've been used and hurt.    I know I haven't ever intentionally stepped on someone's toes and the ones I thought stepped on mine....they probably all felt the same.... but truly when you go down that road with another business person, you undo friendships, support systems and destroy good things. Why entertain this and give it any of your energy or try to have the discussion which is never ever going to end well.  Truly, with Pinterest and all the millions of ideas and tutorials out there, we are all bound to step into the circle drawn by someone and they will step into our circle.  And usually...it's just that we are doing what we do, following our creative energies where they will take us.... Instead of creating resentment and horrible negativity by thinking and saying that we are the only ones, maybe we just lift each other up. I've been on both sides of this, it feels horrible and embarrassing.  Let's lift each other up and cheer a little bit for everyone, I hope we all make it...  Back to #1 and #2 

4.  Love and Persistence..... This is it..  Design...Make...Repeat.....  and remember why you chose this maker's life. Because you have the heart and soul that doesn't understand any other way to be in the world. Because it's all that you want.  Because it's who you are.   And mostly... because you love it.  The love will see you through the hard work, and make no mistake it's hard work. One dropcloth apron is fun, dropcloth apron #357....not as much...Someday you may get help in the manufacturing of your work which will free you up to create more ideas and designs but it's all going to be work and from my perspective, the best work ever.  But please make sure you are all in....because it will test you but  give you back more than you can dream of......

http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/

Lastly....where ever you may be in your creative business world....MAKE A PLAN.  Know where you want to go, have a road to get there, write down the steps you need to take and pursue the goals every single day with all your heart. .  Twists and Turns...take which ever of those  feels right to you. TRUST your vision, TRUST the makers energy and the pull of what calls your name...TRUST yourself....And don't be afraid to leap when leaping is called for.   There will be dry times, there will be busy times when you are exhausted and wonder what you were thinking and there will be times for hibernating and refreshing your tired soul.  But always always always DO WHAT YOU LOVE.......

Long may you make and thrive... 

<B

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Don't get lost in your feels...

I struggle at times with feeling sad....I do. I fall into a rabbit hole that drops me from doing okay to not so much in a short time.  I'm emotional and I'm not good at  hiding it.  So there.  I've made a serious serious decision to fight this deep rabbit hole at every turn to be happy and live happy.  But sometimes I fail at that because what sends me tumbling down there, is feeling unloved and forgotten. I realize this is my own doing, yes I do. .   For how many years have we heard "you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you"  I mean really... when you suck at feeling loved, how on earth can you love yourself so that you are able to accept and give love.  That statement has  baffled me... for many years/FOR ALL MY LIFE!!!!  Seriously. I didn't get it.  

 And then I read this......  

"It was my life-like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred.  So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.  How wild it was, to let it be"
Cheryl Strayed~ Wild~

Let me tell you, I had to stop and read that over and over and over, about 10 overs and it was a light bulb moment.   My life is sacred and belongs to me. Let it be......  Even as I type these words, I am in tears because this is the deal.  If my life is sacred, if I was made this way, wired like this with love and raw emotion...  Who am I not to love that, to love myself.  Why wouldn't I give to me what I want to give to the world and what I want back.   LIFE CHANGING stuff at least for my messy heart.   If I am sacred, so is everyone else.  We are all worthy of love....from ourselves first.   Okay...I need to breathe after that...take in what that feels like to write it down, say it out loud and believe it deep in my soul....

I love deep talks with my sons, I love their perspective and their truths.  I love their wisdom, trust me, the wise words that come from teenagers will break you wide open.  I was rolling around in some less than happy emotions this morning, a little lonely and on the verge of tears... and my oldest said to me.  "Mom, don't get lost in your feels, do something that makes you laugh and lighten up a bit. Trust the world and trust yourself."  This from a kid who has been let down, stumbled and struggled more than anyone I know... I do get lost in my feels ( I love that name for my over thinking emotions) I think it's easy to do, one thing leads to another and there you are, heading for that place that won't serve you at all.  Maybe if we walk away from our social media for a bit, go outside, face to the sun.  Or have lunch with a friend, exercise your heart out, call someone you love and have a chat..MAKE SOMETHING.  Maybe if we just don't get lost in our feels so very much, it will all seem a little less hard. Maybe if we throw that love around a bit more and open up our windows a bit wider, maybe that is how we stay out of the rabbit holes.  Maybe we just trust that we are not alone in all of this...maybe that's it.  Our sacred lives connected to other sacred lives....Well isn't that the magic?

"TOGETHER. WE CAN DO HARD THINGS BECAUSE WE BELONG TO EACH OTHER."

~Glennon Doyle Melton~

http://momastery.com/blog/

Don't get lost in your feels, love your sacred life and let it be, belong to each other.   I think that is some good love to throw around.  Especially on a Thursday..  Let's do it again soon! 

Love you like wildflowers

B

Too Muchness

You are too emotional
You are too loud
You cry too much
You talk too much
You react too quickly
You get too sad
Get over it
You need to stop doing that
Why can't you be like everyone else
You share too much
You say too many things

and this....

YOU ARE JUST TOO MUCH (translated means... I cannot deal with you, stop being you)......

These are the things I have heard about myself for a whole bunch of my life.    Someone I love dearly once told me I was just too much and they were not sure they could take much of me.  I don't honestly know what to do with that...   But being too much...I can't help it. I can't help any of it.  I've always known I was too much, even as a younger girl, I knew it.  And I knew it was hard for people to understand.  It always felt like approval,  acceptance and even love aren't easy  for girls like me.    It's hard  when people think you are just too too too.....   

"You used to be much more.... muchier.....
You've lost your muchness"
~Alice in Wonderland

TOO  much muchness???   I've spent some time /all my life trying to understand how that could possibly be.  How can anyone be too much?     I think we should let our exuberance and too much out ALL THE TIME....I think we should share, talk, breathe, cry, feel, hug, dance , create and LOVE.....way MUCH more than not and please for goodness sake don't stop doing that thing , whatever it is that makes you so wonderfully muchy.... Stop trying to fit inside something you were never meant to fit into at all. It wasn't for you. And please, this is so important....don't chase anyone who cannot or will not love you just the way you are.  Chase your dreams; chase your truth; chase your happiness.... .but do not chase any person who isn't ready for your too much spirit or any person who doesn't want it.  They are not for you and you are not for them......  

The world needs your muchness and it needs mine.  The world needs us to push against the sides of the box we hide in until it breaks open and there we are in all our much too much glory.  Let the ones who cannot deal, well... let them be.  They have their own stuff to handle, just let your crazy brightness out and let it stay there.  Be so much even if nobody gets it.   That's got to be the real thing of it all.  Be so much... REGARDLESS.  Let muchness be your superpower.  Don't believe those who say that you are just too....

I promise that people, the right people will love you more for it.  I will love you more for it, because I too am too much.....just exactly what I was made to be.  Muchness....Please don't ever stop throwing that around. Bring your magical abundance out to the light, bring it everywhere you go.  LIVE LIKE THAT..... please, I need you in this with me. 

Here is my truth and I've been up for many nights with all of this...I've debated and campaigned for and against myself.  I almost stopped writing this blog, there have been some big gaps because I almost stopped doing many of  things I love so much including this.  Writing, Creating, Connecting....because I felt like maybe my too much was just not working and I needed to repack myself into a box; that maybe the world would take me a little more gently if I wasn't so me ....  Until on a train this weekend I remembered....My muchness, it's a gift, a good thing and I love it. I love how very  much I am and I have no intention or desire to fit into anything at all.... I just can't..... I shouldn't have to.....So I won't.   I'm not going to stop writing, I'm not going to stop talking, I won't stop sharing and I will not stop loving  in my too much way. I will make and create because that is my calling.   I will just be this much, too much and I will be way too much until I'm not.  And that is how it's supposed to be.   Unfettered........ and OH SO VERY much too much muchness.  

 I love you....Much..
B

p.s. when I ran spellcheck on this, the only word that it wanted me to change was ...you guessed it   MUCHNESS...... Underline away spellcheck, muchness is here to stay.

Where I am

"Don't let your mind get weary

And confused, your will be still, don't try

Don't let your heart get heavy child,

Inside you there's a strength that lies

Be here now, be here now""

~Ray LaMontagne~

It's been a difficult few years for my heart. I've traveled through some deep sadness, hopelessness and anger. Desperate and frantic to face, understand and speak my truth. Rising up to stand on shaky legs and figuring out how to walk and run on my own terms. At the same time fiercely defending my right to be who I am and do what I want, making sure this life counts in the way that makes sense to my tangled nature.

I had plans for myself, plans for my business, plans for where I would live. Big ginormous scary amazing plans...Big wish list and a lack of patience to wait for timing or financial security to back it all up. So then....I got even more angry, sad and hopeless. Darn it! I had done the work, faced the dragons, fought the battles and truly thought it was TIME FOR ME TO GO! So mad that I had worked so hard to face up to the stuff that was hard to admit, worked so hard to come to terms with it, worked so so so very hard. And then it seems....Life, God, the Universe had other plans . It wasn't time.

In the middle of it all, a move to a new home. Our landlord of 7 years gave us 2 months to leave for no good reason other than she wanted to upgrade the house and probably raise the rent. It felt like wayyyyy tooooo much...all of it... If you haven't searched for a place to live in a while, let me tell you, it's not fun. AT ALL.... But with a week to spare, I found a good place, location was good, house had good spaces and even a sewing room for me. The move happened which was again NOT FUN AT ALL...And yet I was oddly disconnected. And kind of angry. This wasn't the move I wanted for myself ...But here I was in this lovely home, with nooks and crannies for my pissed off spirit, places asking me to just be, yet I was still resisting it all. The holidays approaching and here I was trying to hold onto a position of "I need to go" when truly I was being called to settle in.

A week in this new house with blank walls calling and rooms ready to be filled with personal and pretty things, I sat down in my comfy chair and cried. I was resisting being one tiny bit happy because it felt like I had given up all I had worked so hard to understand. That I was selling out because I didn't move myself into that sweet apartment with a window and part time parent status. Because if I allowed myself to be happy here, I was not being true to the truths I had fought so hard for. And then.....I heard the words ringing in my heart and head..... "STOP BEING SAD"

I fought it all, the newness of the home, my children's happiness, the making it cozy and homey. It wasn't what I had wanted. I had visions of a tiny sweet apartment with a big window and freedom from my anger and resentment. I wanted peace and calm and quiet. But that didn't live in a tiny sweet apartment after all, it doesn't live in a tiny house, a big cabin or this house. It doesn't live in a place, it lives in a heart and a soul... DUH....the next big lesson. To be happy even when I wasn't happy. Let me say that again, lovely ones....To be happy even when I wasn't happy...

I have taken off my sadness and anger, just like that. All of that righteous indignation that I needed to get to here. All anger that wasn't my strength, my courage or my fierce determination but it was easy to confuse it as such. It was a fire that I needed to warm my hands so that I could find my way through the cold and dark. Like an itchy sweater, I took it off. And for the record, sadness and anger weigh a TON! and then... I settled in. Not just into this house, but into a schedule that is different than I had planned, into finding a way to communicate and negotiate with someone I didn't think I could do that with, into my life as it is right now. I settled in to me. Moment by moment being okay right here, right now. That's not selling out, that's finding my way.

The other night, I was in my comfy chair in the sweet little family room corner of the new house wrapped in a soft blanket with candle glow in the kitchen. In the other room my 18 year old had friends over playing video games in the living room and I was watching some TV. Peaceful and quiet. I felt it. The settling in, the thing I fought. Peace where I didn't think peace would be found. Strength in surrendering to where I find myself and being happy with that. My son's friends looked up and said "it's good to see you so happy, Mrs. Wiggins" and I said. "I Am"

I am always going to be a tangled restless girl, seeking the absolute truth like it's my treasure, my wild heart...my nature. But I'm getting some lessons in how to BE HERE and BE HAPPY that I did not expect. I sort of love surprises like that.

By the way I've missed this, the writing, you , sharing....all of it. I feel like I came home...

<3

B

The View from the Edge

The summer of 1973, I was 15 on the verge of 16 full of all kinds of teenage drama and angst. I had my first serious boyfriend and he was older, heading to college.  My parents brought him along on our annual summer backpack trip in an effort to keep me interested because truly the only thing I was interested in was him. And being kissed.  

Our trip that summer involved a 10 day camping and backpacking trip in and around Yosemite.  And the highlight was to be a night spent on the top of Half Dome.  I wasn't super excited because I was 15, almost 16 and I wanted to be anywhere but with my parents, family friends and a younger brother.  But because I was 15, I had no choice.  I honestly do not remember too much of that trip except like our other backpacking trips it was hard stuff. Because to get to the really great places you have to travel hard trails, walk loads of miles and it isn't always fun. (Can you see where I'm going with this story?).   So after 8 days of lots of hard stuff  with me rolling my eyes and kissing my boyfriend through some of the most beautiful back country anywhere, we hit the switchbacks that lead to the bottom of Half Dome.  8 days of hauling what I needed and some of what other people needed on my back, my 100 pound body carrying 35 pounds of stuff and I wasn't impressed at all with the steep and never ending switchbacks ahead of us in the afternoon sun.....at all. I was pretty pissed off at the ridiculousness of those switchbacks and in my defense, those things go on FOREVER.... At the top of the switchbacks we saw before us THE CABLES......

Awesome, more hard stuff although this held my interest because I loved to climb trees and things, I loved being up high in the sky and possibly more important, my mother is deathly afraid of heights and I wasn't.  I knew I could haul myself and all that stuff up the side of that rock and I did. My mom did in spite of her fears ( I never gave her the credit she deserved for all that, she was facing hard fears) and my brother did it by hanging onto the pack of our other male friend because he was too short to use the cables.  We all did it. And that alone should be an amazing story. But this is about what's at the top, the reason for the planning and hard work... At the top, you take off your pack of stuff and see how HUGE the top is. It's football field and more big....and then there is this...The view you cannot see from anywhere else in the world.   The view that feels like it's the whole world...

I mean really......even my 15 year old snotty high school girl self knew that this was a life changer. I let myself feel what it was like to have done something spectacular. I didn't think about my mom and one upping her, I didn't think about how much I hated these "family trips", I didn't think about my boyfriend and his kisses even though he was standing next to me. I for once let myself feel all my tangled and not cool self and I took in this crazy amazing moment...but then what I did next was where I found myself the most....

There is an outcropping on the top of Half Dome, a place where sheets of granite hang out over the edge of the face.  A place where there is so little under your feet and then nothing at all. Where the best views, the best air and the best of everything are found. On the edge of everything. A place where my breath was taken away, where I walked out and sat by myself and was totally okay with being 15 and awkward and unsure. Where I was suspended over everything and everything was mine. I could have stayed there forever letting the breeze cool my face. It felt like forever, it felt like everything..

Of course my mom with her deathly fear of heights about lost her mind with her only daughter sitting on the edge of nothing, hanging over the valley a bit precariously. So I came back to the safety of the football field size smooth rock top.  We unrolled sleeping bags and had a meager dinner of uncooked foods and a sip of brandy in our Sierra Cups which at that altitude and me being 15 went straight to my head. And slightly tipsy, I watched the full moon rise and light up the whole world. I made wishes on a million shooting stars and I looked down on all the campfires in the Valley below. All in a night spent on the top of Half Dome.   

I did sneak back to the outcropping a few more times before we climbed down the next morning. I hated to leave, wondered if ever I would experience anything so amazing as the edge of that rock...I wondered if I would ever feel that whole again. I wondered if ever I would feel like I fit in like that anywhere else. I wondered ifmaybe that was where I was leaving myself, on the outcropping looking down or instead I had found myself. Maybe both.

I returned to school to be a cheerleader, my boyfriend went away to college and dumped me and I resumed my slightly awkward but fun journey through school. But I knew that I was changed through the hard stuff, the switchbacks, the carrying of things, by the view from the top. For a moment, I wasn't just a girl at my school doing what looked like normal stuff, for  I had stood on the edge of the world and it was mine.  I held that knowledge and power in my heart for a while and then I put it away, not sure what to do with it.  .   

That summer, that trip came back to me in a dream the other day. I felt compelled to sort it out and figure out why after 42 years, I woke up in tears feeling once again changed but not quite sure why. It occurred to me that I've been doing the switchbacks for a good 5-6 years, personal switchbacks but switchbacks non-the-less.  The hard stuff, carrying what I need and what other people need on my back.  And I'm here at the base of the mountain with cables before me and I am good for the climb.  Because I need to stand on the edge and see what the world looks like again. Because I need to be suspended over nothing, over the world, see that view that you only see from the top, have my breath taken away and feel the power in my soul of all that. Remember that I am whole, that sometimes just leaning into the stuff that scares you most is when it gets super amazing and oh so real. Trust that the ground underneath will hold me. Go to  where I will feel the breeze cool my face and travel to where I am just me, a girl on the edge of everything.....

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."

Kurt Vonnegut

Be Mighty

Barbara

p.s. these are not my photos. I found them by doing online searches of Half Dome and the Cables.  

I miss.......

I miss hugs

I miss my hand being held

I miss caring and being cared for

I miss being held and reaching out

I miss being part of something special and important

I miss the pat on my butt

I miss belonging

I miss kisses......

I love kisses, I love kissing. I love knowing there is someone who wants to kiss and be kissed. I miss quick pecks, I miss the long deep against the wall, I miss the in the car at a stoplight kisses, I miss the passing in the hallway kisses.  I miss them all.

I miss saying I love you, I miss hearing it, I miss feeling it... and I miss kisses and all they mean...

.......

<3 B

Rumble......

"We reckon with our emotions and get curious about what we’re feeling; we rumble with our stories until we get to a place of truth; and we live this process, every day, until it becomes a practice and creates nothing short of a revolution in our lives. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness."  ~Brene Brown, Rising Strong
http://brenebrown.com/


I'm in the midst of something big...standing up....  I guess that doesn't sound so big, however it is the bravest thing I have ever done and  it feels huge.  I've spent a great deal of my life trying to build a place that keeps everyone happy and safe. I've taken care of people and I've nurtured dreams. Tolerated let downs with a smile and a story to protect those who do the letting down and kept the lights on in a broken place.  When my kids stumble and they do, I wrap my arms around them and fall with them, protecting them from the hard ground and cushioning the blows, harsh words and opinions of those who aren't looking out for their interest. I've lived in horrible run down unsafe houses but painted the walls and made white curtains to make them feel like home so everyone feels safe and loved. I've spent my life being and doing what is expected. Worked jobs and pursued a career that looked successful but I felt like a phony, going through the motions.  And in the process. I got lost.  I excused away the voice inside of me until I became a porcelain doll face with a frozen smile instead of the real girl, the messy, funny,  tangled, emotional, intuitive, longing, creative girl, the one that doesn't really fit in most places.  I declared myself to be one thing but knew deep I was selling out and being the very thing I was afraid of, broken and invisible.  Asking for nothing in return and pretending it was okay but truly getting a bit pissy about never being offered anything..just because I am here.  I built this little brick house but now I don't want to live in it. 

Don't get me wrong.  My kids, they are the world to me...just right the way they are.  I love them just like I want to, with my WHOLE HEART....And maybe it's the fact that they are grown or on their way to grown and they have left some big spaces empty in my world. Maybe I'm adjusting to what it feels like to be alone with myself and my truth.  Maybe it's my age and I'm not as inclined to be what everyone else is expecting or needs.  And I'm okay if they aren't okay with it.  Maybe I just want to fly a little bit and find out what fresh air in my face feels like.  Maybe I don't want anything less that what is absolutely real and authentic.  Maybe.....I just want to stand up, be seen and heard.  Maybe I just want to be me unapologetically.  Maybe I have learned to be compassionate and loving to me.  Maybe that makes me whole for the first time....

I can feel the ground swell underneath me.  I can feel the energy crackling off my fingertips, I can feel the fierceness of my heart as the rumble grows almost like the beat of a drum from down deep.  Every day a step or two taken in the direction I choose.  Looking at what is broken and crumbling and using it to build a future on or letting it go, whichever is the truest thing...It's personal and it's visible, this rumble of mine.  I spent a great deal of time crying and lamenting and wondering when I would understand the suffering and brokenness but never did I run from it, I stayed knowing it was important and it was.  At long last I do understand it.  I'm not forgetting or wishing away the harsh truths that I fought so hard to look at without blinders.  I'm gathering what the truths taught me as that is where the rumble came from......I am not afraid of the rumble as it is my story,  rather,  I think I will dance to it .. 

Be wildly you....

Barbara