Hi you,
First: Preorder pricing for the Snowflake Pendant and Earrings ends this week, so if you’d forgotten to order (I’ve forgotten so much lately, too) with the lower price, this Friday is your last day to get the order placed. I don’t have much else to share beyond that for shop updates – I’ve been pretty swamped catching up on soap making for the farm and working out some complex jewelry designs – ones that still aren’t quite finished just yet.
And off we go.
Writing this week’s newsletter has felt a bit like trying to unravel a sweater that I couldn’t find the yarn end for. No matter how many times I went over the edges, I couldn’t seem to figure out where the end to start from was. Where’s the starting point on the map that I can point to when trying to explain how I ended up in There Be Dragons territory again this week – where can we find each other? How do I – we – find the point to begin unraveling ourselves for each other so we can begin to find the common threads between us – and how do we find the courage to risk trusting each other to begin that process? Where do we find the courage to trust that this other person won’t leave us a tangled mess on the floor that we have to knit back together when they see the knots holding us together, those knots we manage to keep tucked neatly out of sight, between all those perfectly aligned rows of stitches that we present outwardly? How do we find that bravery time and time again? How do I find the thread-end of mine to hand to you – and the courage to do so – so that you also know I trust you?
Someone has to offer the first end in order to begin.
I’m usually comfortable being the first one to offer that end – sometimes it gets labeled oversharing, but I’ve found more people appreciate it than not. Besides, it’s not like I’m forcing people to talk with me or be friends with me. They can easily ignore me, walk away, change the subject, even block me – I am optional. You can choose or not choose me. If you make it clear you don’t want to talk to me, don’t want to be around me, I’ll leave you alone – I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted. You don’t have to pretend you like me, that you want to talk to me, that you care – any of it.
I am optional for you; if you want me, you can choose me, but you don’t have to.
The nice side effect with being optional is that, eventually, you end up with the people that want to be around you. You end up with the people who are curious about the kinks and knots hidden behind your stitches, the ways you’ve knit yourself together. You end up unraveling what makes you with the ones who are willing to unravel and reveal themselves with you. (It goes both ways – you are optional to me, as well. If I show up for you, it’s because I want to. It’s because for some reason or another, I like you; some part of me is curious about the knots that you’ve tied to keep going, and the varied ways you’ve knit yourself together.)
When you’re optional like that, you open yourself up to the possibility of being seen by people who will appreciate you as fascinating, intriguing, beautiful, worthy, cherished. However, to be seen that way, you need to be willing to show up genuinely – to be earnest, authentic, vulnerable – and that takes courage. Don’t mistake the familiarity gained through practice for being comfortable either – no matter how long I’ve done it, it still takes a tremendous amount of courage. It never gets easier to allow someone else to see the way our lives have curled and kinked us into something a little tangled. It takes courage to stop hiding the knots, and it takes courage to step out of the safety we’ve knit around us… especially when there’s the very real risk that you will choose someone and then they decide you’re an option they don’t want. That is a breathtaking kind of pain. It’s cutting, crushing, and it ties you in knots that you may not know how to untangle. It’s a risk you choose to take – but someone has to offer an end in order to begin.
May you be surrounded this week by people who choose you as the option they want,
A. Markov
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