Just out of the subway from the A train and immediately you can feel the bite. I snap up the collar on my new Black Scale pea coat and briskly walk to my destination. You need a key to get through the front door and since my hands were full from stopping off to get “a slice” and some pepperoni poppers I was happy to see the silohette of a woman opening the door. However, she didn’t see me and I figured if I tried to just follow her in I might startle her.
After digging out the keys and squeezing through the front door I find myself at the top of the stairs looking in the face of the woman who had just opened the door. She had a really big smile that encourage me to be coordal and ask how she was. She said good and asked if I was staying in the bed and breakfast upstairs and doing an article on them. Having met 2 of the 8 owners earlier I figured my owner count had just gone up to 3.
We set up a time to talk later and I left for a meeting. On the my way back from a meeting in that Williamsberg Area of Brooklyn, I was walking back through the front door and my owner count went up to 4. Mathew didn’t say much then but came up and joined Karen and I as we had a chat in the living room of 3b Bed and Breakfast. We talked about our businesses; how mine started, how theirs started, why they do what they do and how. Although I had heard some of this from Dave, the second owner in the count, I was still captivated by the story and we began to talk about other things. Big companies, small companies, why companies do well and why others aren’t so great, then it hit me that it’s these interactions that I miss.
There is nothing like the bond between independent creatives. Some artists share this to a certain extent, as well as people who own businesses and don’t have much of a creative bone in their body. But, there’s something special about business owning creatives. A spark of sorts that is hard to quantify, hard to explain and yet I know it’s there as much as I know I’m breathing.
I would like you to share in this feeling with someone. ANYONE…find a person that makes you want to talk and share things you haven’t shared with anyone. Talk to people whome you see yourself in and still feel are as different from you as possible. This is what life is….a seed sewn and grown…over time…..an idea with no particular focus…a thread….woven from me, to you, to all the folks at TED and back again. .
