There was a movie (and two books) a while ago called The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. A delightful tale of four women and a pair of jeans. Each woman had a story to tell about her adventures with the jeans, and each came away with a greater experience. Well, so it was with my Hippie Chic Laptop Tote. It took quite a journey, both in distance and in a lesson of just how small the world is and how we are connected.
I wrote about making the tote a while back. The post is here: https://auntmaymesattic.net/2014/12/23/the-making-of-a-hippie-chick-laptop-tote-from-a-reclaimed-vintage-pillow-sham/
And recently someone bought it. You can’t imagine how thrilled, and sad, it was at the same time. What was interesting was where and who it was going to.
When I was preparing the package to send, I noticed that the address on the receipt showed not only my home state but also the county where my childhood home is. So I sent the customer an email, stating I was from the area, but a little south. (How I love to connect, even for a moment, with folks from where I’m from. It’s a common thing we all do.) Then she replied she was from that same area too. When I went to prepare the shipping label, I started to get that “woo woo” feeling that one gets when they are about to embark on a journey that can only be described as”cosmic”, “divine”, “serendipitous” and convincingly “un-coincidental”; as if some divine “hand” was involved in the making. I noticed the address; twelve miles from where I grew up; in an area where I used to frequent as a child.
I sent another email and we chatted; her describing places she’d been to, and my describing my adventures in the older part of the city. I even described what her area looked like long before the developers came. (I’m much older than she, and her area was still considered “the country” when I was young).
She received the tote and sent an email stating that it was a little too narrow for her laptop. Then asked if I could make another one, and send it to her? Unsure if I had another vintage pillow sham, and leather handles, I went digging. And, as coincidence (and this story) would have it, I found them both. So with another set of love touches, I made another one, sent the customer an email saying it was finished, and sent it off. And she promptly returned the original.
During several back-and-forth emails, I found out that my customer was not only a teacher, of a similar subject that I taught as a teacher, but also taught in the same school district and, (here it comes….) at the same school! Think of all the connections!
So just what is this connective “force” that makes our world closer to others? Some call it Grace, some call it Serendipity, and some call it a Gift. Have you experienced some set of serendipitous sequence of events that has convinced you of the fact that there is “something more” than what you see around you in the everyday? After this experience, I’m going to look at things differently.
Aunt Mayme's Attic 