Being the Change

Improbably, this innocent-looking pair of eyeglasses symbolizes a journey of personal growth. First of all, I have had these glasses far longer than any other pair in my life because I can’t afford to replace them. New eyeglasses have been demoted in priority. In the past, I took for granted the benefits and entitlements of The American Middle Class. No longer. I remember the woman I was, oblivious to the fragility of a paycheck, but that women is four years gone.

I wouldn’t want to have that old me back. She was more shallow than I am, she was more arrogant than I am, she was living with blinders on. She would have had a problem with the cobbled-together repair to the earpiece.

Yes, she knew the things that were really important—health, family, living honorably. Service to others, to her Town. She knew those things. But she knew them through a thick glass of material comfort.

I know now that comfort has a different definition. Once you are tempered by adversity—real adversity—your perspective on “things” changes, irrevocably. So, eyeglasses break and can be repaired many times. They can even be repaired with an artistic flourish. Who will care that my earpiece is tipped with a glob of seed beads? That other Alyson would have cared, would have felt deprived.

The current Alyson’s opinion:

Puhleeze . . . . Everything is relative.

A Basket of Joy

I have been caught up in my task of creating a new market on www.1000markets.com, caught up in making the market come to "live" status---you know, using my brain instead of my hands.

So this morning when I glimpsed this basket of yarns, I came to a halt, took a picture, and resolved to set aside time today to make things.

And I did make things.

Wow, all this Village stuff has gotten me to consider my goals carefully, and try to meet them. I even made a crocheted flower of my own design and hung it up. It is useless, but it pleases me.

I have a slew of ideas for making things. I hope this week to get some of them off the page and into reality.

I admit I have been "sunning myself" in the good feeling that the market has brought. I have a million ideas for The Village, too. They have to get off the page and onto the screen!

But now I have a community to share all that with. I just love that. I feel like I have found "my peeps" here after looking far and wide for those who share my need---the craving to share with others about all life brings, not just the creative side of our lives, but all of the messy and wonderful and sad and frustrating things that show up along the way.

I can think of many analogies for this, but none better than that basket of yarn, full of expectancy, full of promise, just waiting to be brought to life.