This last weekend I went to my home town to be a vendor at their local craft show. It's a well-attended show and it gave me an excuse to visit Mom. The show's schedule was setup during the day, show from 4-9 pm, vendor hospitality party, show 10-4 pm the next day and teardown. Decent schedule and I gave Mom the option of attending as little or as much as she wanted to. Considering that Mom is falling into the rare antique vintage of ages, I gave her complete choice as to what she wanted to do. To my surprise she insisted on being there for the whole event right from setup to teardown. She didn't want to miss a thing and she wanted to help.
I must say that my home town craft show was one well-run, organized event that took care of their vendors very well. When I registered I was asked if I needed help unloading. I said "sure if you want something to do." Well I had 2 ladies help me unload and before I could blink my entire car, including my winter travel gear that had to be carted back to my car, was unloaded into my booth space. Wow! The hospitality party was a lunch for us vendors and included a bunch of doorprizes donated by other vendors. Both Mom and I won prizes. Yay!! Help was abound and there for the asking, and yes, I asked.
During the show Mom got the greatest kick out of people looking at her, then looking at the picture of me on my banner, then looking at her again. (Just a *ahem* slight age difference). She saw people she hadn't seen in a while and enjoyed the multiple mini-visits. As for me it was a total riot to see people I hadn't seen since I left and before. The one observation I noticed is that this event was treated like a party. Because my home town is a farming community, there isn't much to do in the off-season so when an event is held, everyone goes to see what's there, as well as who's there. People come and stay a while. I asked Mom if she enjoyed herself and she did.
During the show I saw my Grade 1 teacher, yep the one who failed me at coloring. When she was at my table it was hard not to have the bats fly around in my head and have "do you know how much "therapy" I had to go through because of you" or "hah! look where I am now". What I did was observe and observe that she didn't even notice what was on my table. Was I upset? No. There was too much other good and great moments happening for me to get bogged down with this one. Bottom line is that her opinion does not matter to me now and that I've moved on.
So what about Kung Fu, what did I do Kung Fuey when I was at the show? There's this thing called "acts of kindness" and when I reflect, the whole time I was at the show (and back home) it was one big bubble act of kindness. Yes I used the show as an excuse to see Mom or vice versa, but the fact remains is that I saw Mom and made sure all is well. This was also an excuse for Mom to get out of her senior's complex and reconnect with others that she knows. Plus when doing the show being present is a very valuable skill especially when a person wants to trade cash for wares or when an opportunity is saying "hello!!"
Mom asked me if it was worth my while to do the show and the answer was yes because the benefits were multi-fold. I also acquired my wares in a gift store, leads on more shows, delivered a custom order, potential wholesale customers, an invite both back to this show and into their April trade show and I had a royal blast! So now the question Mom has is are you coming back in April? That's the plan and my bets are is that she'll be looking forward to that show as well because it's also an excuse for her to see me.
Sherri Donohue
Hot Torch, Room Full of Glass, and a Kung Fu Kwoon
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