A strategy consultant told me once, “Ninety-five percent of it is showing up.”
I thought that was brilliant. Surprising, but bright. Because think about it. Who are the people you know in your life well? The ones that are there, right? Through the good stuff, and the icky bits, too.
Really? I’d thought. All you have to do is turn up, and you’re going to be rewarded somehow? That’s when our intern that summer happened to walk in the door of Victrola’s, not the one on 15th but the one down the hill, and join us. (This was in Seattle.)
“Showing up is most of it,” he said again, this time addressing her, too.
So, today, for my Thirty Days of Thanks in August project, I’m going to make a group thank you.
Thank you to the people who, time and again, show up.
For me.
For my art shows.
For my readings.
For the times in my life that I need someone to talk to, someone to bounce ideas off of, someone to think with, someone to walk with. Play with my child with. Hang out with and read together, or get coffee, or play cards, or just be quiet and sit down somewhere new, in another house, with another set of people and the energy that’s there to come through.
To feel it.
To feel together, and like I have a place.
If it weren’t for the people who bought some of my Wavular artwork in 2010, 2011, and this year, too, I probably would talk myself out of making it. But there were supporters who said, “Make that!!! You have to!” And so, what did I do? I made things. New things. Evolving, changing, seeing the moments where things definitely took a big turn, and where what used to be just doodles on the sides of notes in physics class turned into walls of line ink, and tall scrolls that people wanted to look at for a long time, and linger.
Making the space to feel the space to see how it is we feel.
That’s what I do.
With Wavular. With writing (I hope!), and with design.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
What about you? Who are the people in your life who show up when you need them most?
