Catching up is hard to do

One of the things I look forward to when I start my show season and hit the circuit is catching up with old friends. Most of us have taken at least some time off over the winter and the first show back allows us to see what we’ve all been up to since we last saw each other.

I have many friends but some of the closest ones I have are other artists. Were all on the same wave link, sort of. We can relate to each other better than our other friends do not who travel selling their art. A few of my dearest friends, the ones who I could pour my soul out to if necessary, live many states away from my home and in some cases over a thousand miles away. But because we see each other each weekend at the various art festivals we attend, they’re like my next-door neighbors.

Try explaining to one of your customers that walks into your booth how tired you are with being on the road, away from your family selling art all day long and chances are you’ll get a look from them like “hey you live a glamorous life filled with travel and surrounded with beautiful art, what are you complaining for?”

But when you mention the same statement to your booth neighbor, the other artist that is just as burnt as you, a look of mutual understanding comes back at you. Grant it, we’re not out in the hot sun laboring all day digging ditches but none-the-less, we still get tired.

Anyway, back to catching up with old friends. The one thing that you don’t expect when greeting someone who you haven’t seen in awhile, is finding out that something bad happened to him or her since your last meeting. That was the case with me last weekend. I greeted a close friend with my customary hug and asked her how she “wintered over?” That’s a term that unless you live in the snow country, you might not understand. She smiled and said “fine” but I sensed that she was either ultra tired or not telling the truth. We parted ways and I headed back to finish setting up my booth. I really didn’t give it another thought until I latter found out (from another artist) that our mutual friend had lost a family member since the last show we did together and she was just too upset to even tell me about it. Totally understandable, but I would have loved to be able to reach out to her and just let her cry on my shoulder if she needed.

Thankfully, most of my catching up with friends was on a happier note but I also found out though the grape vine that another close friend was in the hospital under going tests to determine if something was wrong with his liver. I talked with his wife and she was going to call me this week to fill me in on his results. No call yet, I’m worried.

Boy, these folks are my age and although were not teenagers any more, were all too young to be having these scares and loses. Life just sucks some times, even for us “happy-go-lucky” artists. Send your good thoughts their way, please.