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Well, well, well… look who finally dusted off her Etsy shop ( www.etsy.com/shop/KellySchwark ) and decided to start sharing a few of her things. Me. Orion is on Etsy, and so am I! Again.
When my daughter was an infant in 2007, Etsy was my creative outlet. It gave me a teeny tiny taste of socialization with others, albeit virtually, and maintaining my small shop was reminder that there was more to life than just diapers and baby food. As a new mom, there were many days when I doubted that reality. In all honesty, Etsy and Twitter connected me to the very things that kept me afloat during some rough seas. After some time, though, life took a very different course, and I had made the decision to close up my shop.
So why reopen now? Why wipe away the dust and sweep up the cobwebs at my Etsy shop to share with you these tiny things? (Especially when I never really found my salesman cap and would much rather keep them for myself or gift them to friends.) The answer is a lot more complex than I first realized when I sat down to write this post. Part of me has been pushed to do it out of necessity, but I’m discovering that there is so much more to it than just a need for additional income. When I sat back and looked at the few things that I am ready to part with at this time, I noticed something. They are representations of light in the darkness.
That made me smile. Yes, yes, that truly is what I so desperately want to share with each and every one of you: Light in the darkness.
Last night, as I went through Times Square in the middle of Manhattan, I kept thinking about how all of the artificial light was disabling anyone’s ability to look up and see the arrangements of the stars above, slowly and persistently creeping across the night’s sky. Light is still light, of course, but there is something so awe inspiring about the natural light cast out into space from thousands of light years away, reflecting back to us. Give me a sky full of stars, and my heart is full and happy at the sight. Time, distance, and space, and yet it is there for us night after night, to guide us, to inspire us, to make us stop and be awed by the beauty that has always surrounded us in the darkness. It made me think of the most genuine friendships that I have had during moments of darkness. They were always there, ready to help guide me when it was difficult to make sense of the ground below, feeling disoriented in the blackness of night.
Deciding to share a tiny tribute to “light in the darkness” was just enough to get me to unlock the (virtual) doors over at my Etsy shop, clear off a shelf and place a few things there for now. So, whether spotting Orion makes you smile, or if you have another arrangement of stars that bring you comfort, you can find a few of them HERE today.
(And, if you haven’t read about the special spot that Orion has in our hearts, read here.)
