Market of Stars

Forever ago, I was a writer. It was something I spent much of my young life immersed in, and something I totally abandoned when I decided to open my brick-and-mortar stores in my mid-twenties. I became consumed with making my shops a success, and somewhere in the whirlwind of business— and then later, in the wilderness of motherhood — I put down my pen and simply forgot to pick it up again. 

But during the 2020 lockdown as I struggled to save my biz, homeschool my daughter, and keep my feral anxiety leashed, I began to see that I needed some kind of creative outlet to survive. 

I reached out to a long time mentor and friend, who was going through her own small business crisis at the time. I told her I felt like I was suffocating.

“Here’s what you need to do,” she said. “Go outside and lie down. Look up at the stars.”
She told me to imagine every stress, worry, and burden as a rope tied to my body, pulling me in every direction.

“Picture a sword above your head,” she said. “It’s sharp. It’s heavy. It’s about to fall on you. Now take a big, deep breath and imagine you are taking hold of the sword. Pluck it from the sky and USE IT. Cut all the ropes with it, all the worries, the burdens —feel them fall away. Use what is threatening you as a tool to be free.” 

I put on a coat and a scarf and dragged my old yoga mat out to my frozen lawn. 
I lay down and looked up at the night sky. It felt hard to breathe. It felt silly and desperate and painful all at once, but I reached up to take hold of that imaginary sword threatening to hurt me. And I cut all the ropes, and I cried for a long time.

But here’s the thing: when I stopped crying, I saw there were stars above me. 
So many stars, steady and luminous and filled with magic.

I got up and went inside, and I started to write again, to dream again.
And that night I created Market of Stars.

Wherever these words find you, I hope you know that whatever you’re going through, however alone you feel, you can always, always look up.