My tent in the morning before other artists had shown upThis past weekend started off early Friday morning with 30% chance of rain all day.  The plan was to drive to Midway, KY to set-up for Francisco’s Farm Art Festival.  The show was moved back to Midway College’s campus this year, which is where it was held originally.  This was going to be my first year participating, and while I was excited, there are also so many unknowns when setting up at a show for the first time.  I was one of the first artists to arrive and was warmly welcomed.  I set-up quite quickly, and the rain held off.  By noon, I was enjoying a nice lunch at one of the local places on Main Street.  That was when the day shifted.  I got a call from a friend who is also an artist and was informed that a “freakish gust of wind” came and blew my tent and weights and everything with it.  I quickly paid and made my way back to campus, which was thankfully only a half mile away.  By the time I showed up, volunteers and other artists had collected all my display and things and piled it all under my tent roof, which was no longer part of my tent, to keep it all dry from the now lightly falling rain.  I calmly checked everything underneath the canvas-my product was safe and only one piece of display was destroyed.  My tent poles were another story.  Two corner poles were completely bent so that the tent would not work.  One of the volunteers called in a campus maintenance man.  This guy was incredible!  He took my poles down to the college tool shop.  He and a bunch of other guys tried bending the pole back using a vice.  When it broke, he still refused to give up.  “Oh, we can probably just rebuild it…we are use to finding ways to fixing all these old buildings here.  For example, the boiler downstairs is older than me, and I’m 68,” he said with a big smile.  He was right-they were able to rebuild my poles and make it so that my tent could stand again.  I was so appreciative and told him that they were magicians who had magically made my tent work.  He laughed and said they were engineers.  They are magicians to me.  Of all the places for wind to mess up my poles, it happened on a college campus where there were willing guys and tools to fix it.  I kept thinking how lucky it all was considering what had happened.  Throughout all of it, the volunteers were attentive and helpful, making sure I was ok on all levels.  I was incredibly taken care of.  Once the tent was standing upright with walls and a roof once again, I began re-doing my display.  I hung the curtains with a whisper in the back of my mind “begin again.”  This is a phrase that I’ve heard from a local yoga teacher.  As I slowly and carefully re-did everything that I had just done that morning, it was like a mantra in my mind—“begin again”.  I recalled how when I first showed up one of the volunteers commented, “Props to you for not being stressed out by this…”  I have learned that stressing out and being upset is not particularly helpful.  To be honest, I was too focused on trying to think of a solution to get stressed out.  It was more in the aftermath of it as I reflected on how my day had shifted completely out of my control that I thought “just begin again”.  There was no need for upset or frustration…just be gentle with yourself in the midst of the shifting and the re-doing…just begin again.  

A big THANK YOU to all the volunteers who were so awesome all weekend long-- and a really, really big THANK YOU to the magician maintance men of Midway College who helped my tent to stand again :)

Because of the excitement on Friday, I was interviewed and made a brief appearance in this article about the show.