Brand Camp Blog

I’m off on the longest vacation I’ve taken since meeting my husband, and since opening the studio, and I plan to ignore the interwebs as much as humanly possible except to post annoying pictures of me eating pain au chocolat in every Parisian cafe known to man on Facebook.  You can follow the Facebook adventures here — and yes, that’s a lot of pain au chocolat.) Here are some things to do while I’m gone.

• Consider reading a few of my favorite posts about Sales and Pricing in downloadable, free-PDF form.
• Stay tuned on Tuesdays and Thursdays for FAB guest authors (you know I’m a classic overachiever and have had them lined up for weeks, right?).
• Read this post about turning failure around — and quickly — by my dear-God-I-would-love-to-meet-her-but-then-I-would-just-smile-awkwardly-and-not-say-much-’cause-I’m-fairly-shy-like-that writing hero, goddess of small businesses everywhere, Naomi Dunford.
• Get the free ebook, What Matters Now, by Master of the Business Universe Seth Godin.
• Sip a lemonade.  Now’s the perfect time for sipping lemonade.
• Read some comics.  Specifically, the ones found on Stuff No One Told Me (but I learned anyway).  When this dude starts selling prints, the entirety of my office will be covered in 5×5″ framed squares of these pearls of wisdom.
• And this?  This brought tears to my eyes and made me wish for world peace, in a decidedly soul-stirring but non-patchouli-incense-burning kind of way.

I made reference to a personal project on the blog a few weeks ago and had no intentions of sharing it.   Then my friend Miki encouraged/dared me to share it in the name of being authentic, creating meaning, and being fearless.

The attitude and harsh words, the tough love, the no-nonsense…that’s much easier to create than a blog post that reveals so much of who I am and where I come from and what hurts in my life right this second.  But I did it.

Grandma lives in a nursing home.  When I found out her possessions were being divided, sorted, and otherwise rummaged through before selling her dormant house, I traveled back to photograph the objects that hold meaning for me.  To observe and remember.

I found many things were just the same: the divine light in the kitchen, the bird clock, the jar of spoons on the table (yes, spoons – I never asked why), the grapevines in the backyard.  The fixtures, the furniture.

But the tricycles my cousins and I raced around the back porch were gone.  The tire swing, the toy yellow telephone I used to place calls to China, the album full of newspaper clippings about my family.  The bright red whistle I filled with water to chirp like a bird at all hours of the day and night.  The toys we loved that had to stay at Grandma’s house so others could enjoy them, too.

All gone.  The beehives buzzing in the backyard, the smell of dinner, the come-in-anytime policy that happens when you grow up a few hundred yards from Grandma’s house.

And Grandma?

I walked in and her eyes lit up.  She knew she knew me.  She knew she loved me but didn’t know why.

“Oh, it CAN’T be….um…uh…”

“Kristen, Grandma.  It’s Kristen.  Hi.”

“Yes, Krista.  Hi.”

Grandma’s gone, too.  She’s lost the present, but I hope she’s gotten to keep her memories of life twenty-something years ago, when her grandkids chased each other around the back porch and caught lightning bugs way past their bedtime.  And I pray she knows she is loved by that kind lady who gave her a lingering hug, even if my name never does turn up.