Trying to replace an employee of 10+ years is daunting. When our innerSpirit rattle “finisher” Pam Johnson gave me the news she would be leaving Alpine and J. Davis Studio at the end of May, I experienced the loss of both a friend and a trusted employee, and wondered how I could ever replace those qualities.

But as that door closed, within a few days a new one opened. For some time, I had noticed a woman performing lawn maintenance on a government building that I passed on my daily afternoon walk. I thought, “That lady is not afraid to work.” After Pam gave her notice, on a hunch, I stopped and introduced myself to Betty Jo Teague, the lawncare worker. I described the job I needed to fill, and without hesitation, she said she would like to give it a try.

I found out later that Betty Jo had lived in Alpine most of her life and that I knew her husband and her daughter-in-law. In a town of 5,000, you do end up knowing a lot of people.

Betty Jo was very anxious to start work so that if she could not do the task, I would still have time to replace her before Pam left. I found this extremely conscientious in a prospective employee. The more I talked to her, the more I realized that she, like Pam, was a woman of courage.

In 1983 she was broadsided by a car going 120 miles an hour. The majority of the bones in her lower torso were broken, which led to the diagnosis that she would never walk again. During a routine xray session on a tilting xray table, the technician failed to buckle the straps holding Betty Jo in place, and left the room for a moment. This infraction proved to the doctor that she could indeed stand on her own. After a total of 2-½ months in the hospital, the doctor told her if she was able to stand for a few moments, he would let her start physical therapy. She said that with divine guidance and a 2-year-old child at home, she was determined to walk again.

Betty Jo now walks around unaided and told me she will be having 3 grandbabies before the end of this year. Please help us welcome her as the newest addition to our studio!

– John

I can’t tell you how proud I am to have children who have such compassion and empathy. I know I’ve made many many mistakes in my child rearing days, but these character traits in our daughters help me tune out all the times I’ve screwed up. I can feel my knotted shoulders relaxing just a tiny bit.

Robin

The Person Who Has Influenced Me The Most

(written by Michaela for her college application in 2007)

As I stepped onto the crowded Greyhound bus, all eyes seemed to be on me. “What have I gotten myself into?” I wondered. As I quickly shoved my backpack into the overhead rack, a blue-eyed, curly haired girl came up to me with out-stretched arms. “Hi! I’m Lillie, you can sit by me.” Although I had read her paperwork and talked to her on the phone, she was not what I had imagined. It turns out that Muscular Dystrophy affects each person differently, and Lillie, with help from her walker, was still able to walk.

After the two-hour bus ride to Happy, TX, we arrived at the cabins. I was amazed to see how many people attended camp. Wheelchairs, walkers, and braces awaited their owners. I helped Lillie off the bus, and for the first time, I saw how difficult walking was for her. Campers had their own counselors, which would be with them at all times. Some needed help moving to and from the bunk beds, while others only needed help brushing their hair. I realized how these were everyday tasks that I took for granted. Although most suffered only physical disabilities, some were mentally challenged as well. I’ll even admit, it was very uncomfortable at first: A twenty year old that let food fly from her mouth at the dinner table and needed “assistance” in the restroom, or the autistic boy that would scream if you came within two feet of his wheelchair. At first, I was horrified. However, within the first day, I had fallen in love with each and every camper.

The first time Lillie fell, it killed me. Convincing me that she could shower alone, I turned to get her shampoo. Apparently, she had lifted her leg to rinse off some soap, and “SMAK!” her tiny body slipped onto the wet, tile floor. It is inevitable for the campers to fall, but from then on I carried her most of the time.

At camp, we did activities just like any other summer camp: swimming, horseback riding, arts and crafts, and fishing. We had dances and even a talent show. However, I was not there for my entertainment. I was there to help these kids have the best week of their life. There are so many simple things we overlook: walking, clapping our hands, and feeding ourselves. For some, even smiling is a challenge. Their muscles prohibit them from doing so much, but to see their optimism and enthusiasm made me realize how grateful I should be.

As the week progressed, I learned everyone’s name and cherished them all. I felt like I could do this forever and be happy! On the last day, we had a “Rookie Graduation”. Outside on the grass was a large tarp with the past week’s leftovers: sandwiches, cereal, spaghetti… you name it. The smell was utterly repulsive. One at a time, each rookie stepped into a trashcan of ice water, then crawled through the disgusting mess, as campers smothered us with ketchup, shaving cream, syrup, and flour. The kids had a blast! I took three showers to get the putrid smell out of my hair. It was honestly the most nauseating, yet rewarding thing I had ever done.

Because Muscular Dystrophy is a degenerative disease, the campers get worse each year. It is painful to see them go from walking with braces to requiring a wheelchair. Each summer, there is the fear of a camper not returning. The most meaningful words every spoken to me were from a boy at camp. He said, “My friend had a brother that had what I have, and he lived to be twenty-five. If he can live to be that old, then so can I.”

I am so grateful for the opportunity MDA has provided me, and I will continue attending camp as long as I can. It was here that I have made the best friends, and learned to live each day to its fullest, because I realize that life truly is precious.

J. Davis Studio bids farewell to Pam Johnson who has worked at the studio since 1999. Pam was born and raised in Alpine, and after commenting how she would miss the mountains of West Texas in contrast with the plains of the Texas Panhandle where she will make her new home, we all presented her with a going away gift — a lamp with the silhouette of the famous Twin Sisters Mountain, inspired by the view off my back porch, not far from where Pam grew up.

If you have touched one of our innerSpirit rattles, you have touched Pam’s handiwork. She has been the “finisher,” the one who binds and beads each rattle as it is prepared for shipment. Such work is meticulous, requiring a good sense of the unique colors of each piece as well as a steady hand and eye. This process completes the “personality” of our signature rattles.

Pam’s magic touch extends far beyond her work at J. Davis Studio. I have seen Pam take a dead-looking $2 orchid and turn it into a tropical specimen with 20+ blooms. Once, she took some cast-off goldfish and raised them into huge, beautiful koi-like creatures — all in the desert of West Texas.

Surprising none of us who knows her, when life has given Pam lemons, she has always managed to make margaritas. Despite recurring health issues, she has inspired us with her great sense of humor in the face of adversity.

Since every employer wants the best for his or her friends and employees, I am quite pleased and content to know that Pam is moving to a house in Happy, Texas (yes, there is such a place) with a well and plenty of land for her horses.

We all wish her much health and happiness!

John

I wish I had a name to put with this picture, but I suck at names, so I don’t even try anymore. I can never keep up with the sheets of papers or notebooks I write on or in, so I figure why even bother digging through my purse to find a pen?

I was mesmerized by this woman. I watched her as she made her jewelry for a good while before I got the courage to go up ask her if I could take her picture. She couldn’t have been more friendly. I admired how brave she was to sit and work in front of the tourists as they gawked (like me) at the beauty of Niagara Falls.

When I told her my husband and I owned a production ceramic studio she talked about her love of clay. She said she had taken a class in college and really enjoyed doing slab work, but that her professor had fussed at her for making thick clunky pieces. He said that wasn’t her style, and that she should be doing thinner and lighter pieces. She told me she’d do the thinner pieces like the teacher insisted on when he was in the classroom, but as soon as he left she’d go back to doing the kind of work that made her feel good. She said some of the students told her she inspired them to do better art. And then she said something that made my heart melt. She said “You know, I knew I had that in me. I never knew I could inspire people like that before then”.

After I handed her a $5 bill for a pair of earrings made in the shape of hummingbirds, I gave her a rattle and told her she inspired me, and to never ever let someone tell her how to do her art if it didn’t feel right.

I really regret not getting this woman’s name, but I know for sure I will never forget her face. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but somehow her story changed me… for the better I just know.

I have lots of favorite stories about my drive to New York City to meet and hear Seth Godin. But one makes me laugh every time I think about it. I wrote earlier about how I sat on the ground in front of the guardrail for about two hours while taking in Niagara Falls.

While I basked in the beautiful day, I heard a group of kids coming up from behind me. Now, I did not hear anyone say this (but in my mind) I hear this boy whispering to his friends “Watch me scare that lady”, because all of the sudden I hear this “Ohhhh nooo!!!” and then footsteps running up beside me. But before I could turn and look over my shoulder, I hear the boy run into the guardrail, and his sunglasses shoot off his head and hit the rocks a few feet ahead.

His friends started laughing and so did I. He had not taken in the fact that the guardrail curved around towards the viewing area and he had hit the rail much sooner than he had expected. It was hilarious. I was so happy I thought to jump up to take pictures as he stretched as far as he was brave enough in his attempt to retrieve his sunglasses.

Only one girl in the group said “Be careful”, and she just happened to be the only one with a baby in tow. This scared him, so another friend had to step in… or stretch out, with the help of another girl holding onto his feet, and he successfully reached far enough to save the day.

I told the boy who had tried to play the trick on me “That’s okay, you’re still cool” which luckily made the whole group laugh.

Later I saw the teens again, and I hurriedly snapped another photo (which is out of focus), but they all laughed. One of them said “Go Vikings!” (which I assumed to be their high school mascot), and all I could think of was “Go Longhorns!”. The boy got a puzzled look on his face, something like I would picture from a confused Keanu Reeves in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, and then about 60 seconds later I heard from behind me, “Go Gators!”.

I’m really not a football fan, and I have no idea who the Gators are, but I know they are now my second favorite team.

Just think how much smarter business people would be if we had cameras recording Eisenhower or Churchill’s strategizing about their next move during a battle. Hannah kept repeating “That’s crazy!” at the mental skill behind Parvati giving each of her two teammates an idol which protected them from being voted off, and which instead caused the fool who gave Russell one of those idols, J.T., to go home. And then Hannah said something that makes me proud of her, “I don’t really care for Parvati, but she deserves to win after that. She‘s very smart.”

Hannah is going to be heading to the University of North Texas where she is going to major in entrepreneurship. Even though she spent her freshmen year taking basic classes here in Alpine at Sul Ross State University, she made huge progress in sharpening her entrepreneurial skills by working three jobs during her fall semester, and two jobs on top of playing softball this past semester. There’s no better education than hands-on education. And whether is be changes we need to make in the system at the studio to improve our business, or one of her other jobs, it makes me happy she’s catching on.

It relives me now that Hannah and Michaela are old enough to appreciate good and bad business practices on their own. They often joke about having to put up with me pointing out good business and bad business throughout their life as it took place on a day to day basis. Whether is was good customer service at a fast food restaurant, or the bad customer service we received from AT&T, I used every opportunity I could to help educate them in the game of surviving life.

When they’d come home complaining about the stupidity of one of their teachers or coaches, I’d try my best to point out some good teachers and coaches to help exhibit how the love of one’s career choice makes all the difference in the world. Many of their bad teachers in high school happened to be coaches, who I believe are bitter because they didn’t have what it took to play pro. That happens with many art teachers as well. The bad ones usually harbor resentment for those artists who can make a living with their passion.

But I also pointed out that some of the rules that good teachers have to follow are not of their making. Teacher have follow state rules as well as some imposed on them by school administrators. I always appreciated the education opportunity bad teachers and bad rules offered because they always gave me the chance to point out to Michaela and Hannah why they wanted to own their business: so they can make the rules, and to avoid being told what to do by someone they didn’t respect. It also provided the chance to point out how life was not always going to be fair; that there are assholes in the world who they were going to have to learn how to work around and make the best of.

My mother in law, a retired school teacher, said it best, “That’s why people shouldn’t home school. Kids get a warped sense of reality.”

And that brings me back to the reason I love Survivor. Whiners and the complainers never win. The ones who win the $1,000,000 know how to get along and make the best of their situation. They connect to everyone. Which is exactly what makes good generals, good business owners, good politicians, good teachers….. all the good leaders.

The best thing about this nearly three week long trip I’m on, has been the time I have to get lost in my thoughts. Whether I’m driving a long and windy road, or sitting on the ground in the middle of a standing crowd who were equally as awestruck as I by the magnificence of Niagara Falls. I sat on the ground because I spent at least two hours at the guardrail, the closest free viewing point at the Falls. I was by myself. I could stay as long as I wanted. I was on the adventure of my lifetime, and I didn’t have to worry about anyone else but myself.

For the first time in almost 22 years, I had no one else to be accountable to. The last time I was this brave was 30 years ago when I moved 465 miles from my hometown to go to a college where I knew not a soul, to Alpine, TX where I would eventually meet the man who would become my husband and the father of my two children.

I’ve done a lot in my lifetime since, but for more of that time than not, I put someone else before my own desires. And because I don’t like surprises that set off a round of whining, I plan our every move when we strike out on a family adventure. A trip to Disney World nearly did me in. It was back in the day when the Internet was this big new wonderful encyclopedia, before it became this overwhelming immense horrifying bank of information it is today.

I used the world wide web to plan every detail down to the last minute, starting with a wholesale tradeshow in Orlando. We flew in a couple of days early so we could celebrate New Year’s Eve under the fireworks. I sensed in the smushed together crowd that we were all grateful to see the end of 2001 and were relieved to begin fresh again with 2002. It was very emotional.

But then again, I didn’t see anyone else crying, so maybe it was only me who was so emotional. Maybe it was from pure exhaustion from planning the trip that had me sobbing under the colorful sparks in the sky. I had worked very hard to work this trip into our budget, beginning with weeks of searching the Internet for the best deal on airline tickets… $120 roundtrip (thank you very much). We did have to drive 6 1/2 hours to San Antonio, but hell we’d of paid about $800 more had we flown out of the closest airport (three hours from Alpine), or paid at least $400 more to fly out of the second closest, a nearly four hour drive. So an extra few hours on the road didn‘t bother me.

But the uniformed guards armed with scary looking machine guns in the airports was very unsettling to us all. And once we got to Orlando, not knowing where we would spend our first night, struck a cord of terror in me. I had gotten a great deal on a room at a Disney resort, but it was not good enough to stay there every night. All I had were some TripSaver coupons printed off the Internet. If those motels didn’t have rooms available, we’d have to keep looking. Luckily there was room at the (very cheap) inn, so I was still on schedule.

The next day, we all jumped in the rented car, and headed to the park. This was John’s only free day to spend with us, so we rode as many rides as we could squeeze in before ending the day by ringing in the new year.

We had a couple of days before the tradeshow started, and our second day at the park. I wanted to visit some of our galleries as well as see the manatees I had read liked to hang around a wildlife refuge. After we visited the gallery, it was another hour’s drive to the swampy refuge, but when we arrived, we saw no manatees. I could feel the exasperation of my family who would have loved to do nothing more than to have stayed in the room playing Donkey Kong on Pay For View. I let their bad energy roll off my back and marched myself into the park office with a map in hand knowing that the volunteer would point me in the direction of manatees.

But oh contraire! Whatever that means. I was crushed when the woman told me that during the winter months, the manatees migrate to the back of a nearby electric plant, where there were pools of water warmed from cooling the generators. And that the area was off limits to the public. I gasped.  I felt a flicker of sympathy from my family when they saw the tears well up in my eyes. But that feeling quickly evaporated as soon as they heard the woman say, “But if you REALLY want to see manatees, you can drive another hour and a half to Blue Springs where they also go to keep warm.

When I jerked my head back over my shoulder to face John and the girls, they did not need to verbalize what their eyes were screaming: “NO! NO! NO!”. They looked like deer in headlights when they saw the crazed look in my eyes. Well… at least for a minute or two. It was Michaela, who finally spoke up “Please mama, please. Not another hour and a half.” And when she saw my eyes bulge from their sockets and my face turning bright red, and then heard me say in a frighteningly calm voice “Get… in….. the…. car. We’re going to Blue Spring”, they all (thankfully) skittered like frightened squirrels towards the car.

And after a silent, but beautiful drive to through the country, we were all so very grateful for one of our most cherished memories. There we were blessed with the sight of at least 25 to 30 mama, papa, and baby manatees, lumbering gentle giants, turning and twirling gently in the shallow clear water. My heart sung with joy. I stayed and watched for as long as I could hold my ground, but eventually gave into the cries of hunger and cold from my husband and daughters.

And then, while John sold lots of rattles, I spent the next few days just like every other mother with children in tow at the overly commercialized amusement park; trying to make sure everyone else around her had the time of their lives.

I very much wish my family could have been by my side as I was struck speechless by the glory of the Falls. But then again, I’m glad it’s not this trip.

Hearing Michaela sobbing uncontrollably on the other end, I subconsciously just kept on falling to my knees. My heart was pounding when I whispered, “Are you hurt?” “No”, she said. I remember thinking “Thank you God.” Then I asked, “What’s wrong?” She said “A friend of mine was killed in a car wreck.” Panic set in again. I asked hurriedly “Who was it?” And once again, I am embarrassed to admit, I felt a sense of relief when Michaela said “You don’t know her. She was on my rugby team.”

But relief is not the same thing as not feeling sorrow. My heart was breaking first for Kadye Cooper’s mother. Her father too, but no one can love a child like a mother, so I thought of her first. Then I thought of both parents, and how their hearts were breaking. I thought of how much they must hurt. I thought about how they had put all their heart and soul into raising their child, watched her grow into what I know just by knowing she was accepted into the University of Texas at Austin, was an outstanding young woman. But by knowing Kadye played on the women’s U.T. rugby team, I automatically know was she dedicated, motivated, could stand up to a great deal of discomfort, and a person who stepped outside the box.

Kadye was also the pitcher on Michaela’s intramural softball team. Both the softball and rugby teams has a diverse group of girls, and they are a tight group of friends. Michaela said they were playing a team of girls from a sorority the other day when one of the other team members made an anti-gay remark. I laughed when Michaela told me her team responded by falling to the ground to do rugby tackle drills. This behavior shocks me as well as makes me proud of my daughter who was once so shy as a child, she would crawl underneath my billowy Indian skirt when someone would try and talk to her. Knowing Michaela has friends with courage to go against the grain comforts me.

Even though I never met Kadye, I know the world has lost one of its shining stars, someone who I know would have gone on to do great things. And for this, we all should mourn the loss of Kadye Cooper.

But I can’t work on getting all those at one time. Steven Tomlinson, (listen to his “Life of Meaning” podcast on his page) a former U.T. McCombs School of Business professor now teaching at Acton Business School gave a RISE Austin session in 2009, and said it best when he said something like: pick 3 things in your life that you want to do well, then pick two from that list that are most important, and then hope you can do one of them really well, because something has to suffer.

For the last 21 years, my number one priority was my children…. not that that job didn’t suffer. But that’s where my focus was, and I worked my hardest to move mountains for them to offer and find them as many opportunities as I possibly could. I started my education on raising teenagers before my first trimester was over. I also worked hard to make my work life fit nicely around their schedule so I could be available. I was not quite a stay at home mom, but I worked from home when they were home. I figured I had taken on the job of raising children, so by god I was going to do the very best job I possibly could. No excuses.

But I found out along the way, that not everything happens the way it’s supposed to. Sometimes, in spite of every tool we have at our finger tips and every tip we’ve ever heard or read, things go awry. Just because the information is out there, doesn’t mean it all works the way it should.

When Michaela got into high school, I realized I was doing my girls much harm to their spirit by trying to prevent them from following the same rebellious path as I did. I was such a waste of fresh air in my teenage years. And I thought by following the well written plan laid out in the umpteen parenting (mostly parenting girls specifically) books, I would produce problem free, productive and useful adults. How could I go wrong? I’m so smart.

Today, Michaela and Hannah are productive and useful adults, but they were far from problem free. But that’s okay, because I now appreciate that they broke the rules. People who make change happen always break the rules. I know they will do good things for the world…. they already are. I’m just so very grateful my job is now done, and that I am free to exchange my # 1 priority for something else. I don’t know what that will be just yet, but I know it will have to be big enough to fill the huge void left behind by my last job.

Today I discovered that divine intervention does not always feel good, and that sometimes my guardian angel is called in to help backup other people’s guardian angels.

I’m pretty sure I saw a man die today. I might even know the exact time, down to the very second. After I called 911, I paced back in forth on the busy street in Syracuse, New York wondering what I could do that no one else was already doing. That’s when my guardian angel shoved me in the direction of the wild eyed woman who had hit the careless man as he rushed on his bicycle to beat the light. And as I hugged her, and told her it was going to be all right, that it wasn’t her fault, I could feel the presence of both our angels at work.

It’s been a long day. I just got to the Motel 6 in Niagra Falls, and Bette Midler is on Pandora singing “I think it’s going to rain today“. And once again ladies and gentlemen I am weeping.

Friday morning April 23, 2010

And today is a new day.

It’s the part when Bette gets to “Human kindness is overflowing“ that made me cry the hardest. My action was only a tiny part of a collective effort of kindness, a village, who each jumped in to take on a task to take care of an emergency situation.

I did not actually see the impact take place, I heard it just as I was dropping quarters into a parking meter. It was a thud. The replay in my head now causes a sickening of my stomach, but at first, from the (for a lack of a better word) gentle sound of the collision, I thought it just a minor fender bender and I thought to myself (maybe out loud… I don‘t remember), “oh man, that sucks”. I also saw something fly into the air when I glanced up, but I thought it was a mirror, or a bumper.

But then I heard a man yelling and voices that made me realize this was not just a fender bender, so I ran over and gasped when I saw the unconscious crumpled bicyclist on the ground. I looked around to see who was calling 911, thinking surely someone was already doing that. But it was a micro second after it had happened, and no one in the handful of bystanders had their phones out, so I started fumbling with mine. And while the phone was ringing, I thought, this is a big city in New York, they’re not going to answer, but after about the 3rd ring, an operator came on with “What’s your emergency?“. I now appreciate how much I appreciated her getting right to the point… no, “Hello, how can I help you?”. And by that time, I saw at least two others on the scene with their phones to their ears.

The operator then asked me questions she was trained to do: “Is the driver still there?” “Yes.” “Is the person who got hit okay?” “No!! He’s unconscious and lying on the ground!!!!” Not at all flustered by my agitated state of emotions, she asked “What kind of car was involved?” “Huh?? I don’t know! I don’t know! Some kind of SUV.” “What color is it?” “Beige.” “What is the license plate number?” “I told you, the car is still here!” “That’s okay mam, I still need the license plate number.” And as I walked to the front of the car sitting in the middle of the intersection and read the number, I was relieved to hear the sirens in the distant. Help was on its way. That fast.

I’m sure 911 had at least 20 calls from people reporting the same accident, but they answered my call, and treated me with care and authority. She did not say, we’ve already got it covered. The woman at the other end of the line kept me on the phone and helped calm me down to get the information she needed. I was not talking to an amateur.

After I hung up, I told myself, stop panicking Robin, now… do something else. But what could I do? One bystander had appeared out of nowhere and was wearing scrubs, so I felt better knowing she had the medical part taken care of. There was another man in plain clothes on the scene barking orders. “Get the traffic moving”. But everyone was petrified. I thought about jumping out and directing traffic, but after a failed attempt at the coveted position of Safety Patrol in 5th grade, I knew I would just cause more confusion.

And when the traffic still didn’t move, the man barking orders got up from leaning over checking the man’s pulse and started guiding the traffic jam around the source.

I paced back in forth, thinking “Do something Robin. Do something.”, so I just fell in with the others. But as I walked closer to the victim, I came to a stream of blood now flowing down the pavement. I traced the stream back up to the back of the man’s unhelmeted head, who besides looking like he was asleep, looked undamaged. It was then knew there was absolutely nothing my lame ass could do, but get in the way.

I walked back to my position on the sidewalk, where I felt helpless, and even worse…useless. It was at that time the first of many emergency vehicles. After several minutes, I started feeling like a rubbernecker, so I headed back to my parked car. When I got there, a young man held out a piece of paper and said “Here’s your receipt from the parking meter.” Wow, I had totally forgotten what I had been doing when I heard the accident. He had to of been waiting for me at least 15 minutes to have known it was me who had been the one who belonged to the receipt…. the receipt stamped with the exact time I heard the dull thud of a man‘s skull hit the side of an SUV.

I thanked the kind stranger, and headed for my car. As I sat there, with tears streaming down my face, I thought god damn it all, I want to do something. I need to do something else. Calling 911 didn’t feel like much.

Then it came to me. There had been an African American woman at the wheel of that car who I realized no one was paying attention to. I had seen her leaning her head out of the car, and screaming “Is he alright? Is he alright? He came out of nowhere!” I assumed the African American man shouting for someone to guide traffic while checking the bikers pulse was her husband who had been riding shotgun when the accident happened, because he was yelling back to her “It was his fault! It was his fault!”.

I thought to myself, I can go comfort her until her husband can. But when I got back to the scene, there were many emergency workers, but the man I assumed was the ladies husband was no longer there. And she had pulled up out of the way on a side street where she sat in her car while a uniformed policeman took her information. She was alone in the car. My heart broke for her. I walked up to the car, put my hand on her arm and said, “It was not your fault. You’ll get through this.” She put her hand on top of mine, and wildly thrashed her head back and forth looking over her shoulders, saying repeatedly “Where you come from?” And me being as rattled as I was, could only think to say “Texas.”

When the officer asked for her insurance, she grabbed my hand, so I couldn’t leave while she leaned over to get the slip of paper from the glove box. She asked me if he was going to be alright, and I told her I didn’t know. She said you saw it, he ran right in front of me. I said I didn’t see it, I had heard it, but I heard other people yelling it was the biker’s fault. She said “Oh lord, I hope he’s going to be alright.” It was about this time that I realized what the white wet stuff was that was splayed across her windshield and hood. It was that goop I learned about in biology class that protects the brain. There was not a drop of blood on her car, just puddles of shiny white creamy pudding. I felt like I was going to throw up. I reached into her car and hugged her, and said, don’t blame yourself for this. There was nothing you could do. Then turned and headed back to my car where I sat to gather my thoughts.

I was there in Syracuse to visit our very best selling gallery, Eureka. Like I did at Pearlman’s in Albany that morning, I was there to drop off a couple of Flying Buttress rattles and a note thanking them for their business. I said the rattles were there’s to do absolutely what they want with them, but one idea I had was to give them to their two favorite stories people can write about their favorite “Favorite Buttress”, the person who gave them support at some point in their life. I thought maybe this contest could be done just in time for Mother’s Day.

My anxious state, as I sat in my car, exhausted me. I thought, well Robin, Eureka doesn’t even know you’re coming. I could mail them the rattles and thank you note and just tell them what had happened. It’s okay I told myself. You can go on down the road. But during this discussion inside my head I realized, if anyone needs support, it’s that lone woman being questioned by the policeman, who was very nice, but doing his job.

I dug through my bag, found a sheet of paper, and wrote “God bless you. We may never know exactly what it is, but something good will come of this. Take care of yourself. There was nothing you could do.” I then grabbed a boxed rattle and trotted back to her car. When she saw me, she reached our and grabbed my hand once again, and once again, she thrashed her head back and forth looking around and saying “Where you come from?”. It was very much like something out of a movie, when a ghost appears out of nowhere. I again said “Texas”, and gave her the box and said I hope this helps comfort you. She said thank you, reached out and hugged me this time, and I went back to my car to decide what my next move was going to be. I felt very relieved when I saw someone drop off another woman who looked to be of an age of her mother climbed into her car, and after awhile, they drove away.

I took a deep breath, and decided I did not drive this far for nothing. I could just drop off the gift bag of rattles at Eureka, say thank you, and jump back in my car to get on the road to my next destination. Even though I had no idea yet, where that next stop would be.

But my guardian angel was watching over me and pushed me into something I really didn’t want to do at the time, talk about what had just happened.

Okay, I’m a bit hungover after 3 glasses of wine last night, especially since I haven’t had anything to drink since I ran out of my bag of wine in NYC a week ago. They don’t sell wine in grocery stores in NY. It’s a beautiful day, and I did not come this far to not see the Falls, so I’m going to follow the directions my GPS gives me to the Maid of the Mist. It’s so nice to have someone else in charge. Mama doesn’t give (or take) good directions.