Hello friend,
Well, it seems you can get a job by telling someone about your funeral playlist. Who knew?
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THIS WEEK
For the first time in over five years, I have a job that comes with a full 40-hour workweek and a regular paycheque. And let me tell you, it hasn't been for lack of trying.
Some of you know the story of my concussion. I decided to go roller skating one day, thinking it would be old hat. After all, I was pretty darn good at it when I was 13, so how hard could it be? Turns out, quite hard. After two trips around the rink, I was flat on my back, having introduced the back of my head to the concrete floor. Apparently, my body had forgotten a few things in the years since I was 13.
That concussion changed a lot. I had to leave my job at the bank, and then, after a few job changes for my husband, we found ourselves living in a new city. I spent more than two years trying to find work, sending out résumés, interviewing, and wondering if anyone would ever take a chance on me.
Now, as you can probably imagine, my résumé is not exactly a straight line. I've owned businesses, worked in different industries, started things, closed things, and wandered off in entirely new directions more than once. I suspect a lot of employers look at that and wonder where on earth I would fit into their nice little boxes. And maybe they're right. I've never been particularly good at fitting into boxes.
For the last year, I've been Instacarting, and honestly, it's been fun. I've met some interesting people, enjoyed the flexibility, and certainly gotten my steps in. But I have to say, I think I'm quite happy to deliver my last four cases of Costco water. :)
Apparently, this company appreciated my answer to a question about my funeral playlist and my slightly out-of-the-box way of thinking. So here I am, working on contract as a customer service representative with Well.ca.
And the funny thing is, it feels a little like coming full circle. Well.ca started not long before I opened Earth's Berries, and back then I had meetings with people there about carrying my products on their website. At the time, they already had another brand in that category, so nothing came of it. And now, all these years later, I'm working for them. Life is funny that way, isn't it?
Speaking of Earth's Berries, I have a story coming up on The Crone Stories about the intersection of closing that business and walking 800 kilometres across Spain with only my thoughts for company. It's mostly a story about self-forgiveness, but it also touches on starting a business later in life, knowing when it's time to walk away, and a little snippet of that rather long walk across Spain. I'll share more when the episode is available.
Now, I have a question for you.
Have you ever built a kite?
I know, a rather odd question, isn't it?
Yesterday, November 1, would have been my mother's 96th birthday.
Last week I told you about the book she had started filling in about her life, and this week I decided to pull it out and have a look. She only managed to complete about ten pages, but I had such a good time reading her answers that I ended up going through all the questions myself.
One of the questions was, "Have you ever built a kite?" It wasn't so much the question I loved, but my mother's answer.
Yes, with my brother, and he used my underpanties as the tail.
HER UNDERPANTIES!
I laughed when I read that because I could absolutely imagine my uncle doing something like that just to embarrass her. I can almost picture the two of them, and I wonder if the darn thing actually flew. It's one of those little stories that I probably would never have known if she hadn't written it down.
But it got me thinking about the questions we ask people. Imagine meeting someone for the first time and, instead of asking what they do for a living or commenting on the weather, you ask them if they've ever built a kite.
If you asked me, I would tell you about the garbage bag kite I built at Girl Guide camp when I was about ten. I was running down a hill trying to get this magnificent creation into the air when the heel of my boot went straight into a groundhog hole. Down I went, and I broke my collarbone. My mother had to come and pick me up and take me to the hospital. It was the only bone I broke as a child, and it was all thanks to a garbage bag kite and a groundhog.
Now, wouldn't that be a great conversation opener? You ask someone if they've ever built a kite and suddenly you're hearing about someone's childhood, their brother, their underpanties, or the time they broke a bone.
I wonder how many stories we're missing simply because we never think to ask the questions. Does your best friend have a kite story? Does your mother? Do you even know?
Of course, it's easy for me to sit behind this email suggesting that you start asking people about their childhood kite-building adventures. Would I actually have the nerve to do it in person? I'm not entirely sure.
Something most people don't know about me is that I can be horribly shy in a room full of people. Put me on a stage or in the middle of a conversation and I'm perfectly fine, but put me in a room where I'm supposed to mingle and make small talk and suddenly I have absolutely nothing to say. I really do suck at small talk.
But I'm learning to put myself out there a little more, to take a few risks and maybe even make myself look a little silly. And perhaps asking someone if they've ever built a kite is a pretty good place to start.
Like I mentioned last week, I've created a little PDF with some questions to ask the people in your life. Nothing too complicated, just a few conversation starters that might uncover stories you've never heard before. I'm sharing it with you here because I think it could be fun to try a few of them with someone you think you know really well.
And while we're talking about stories, there's something I don't think I've made very clear about The Crone Stories.
I don't go around asking women to tell me their stories.
Not because I don't want to hear them. Quite the opposite. There are so many women I know whose stories I would absolutely love to tell. Women I've known for years who I'm certain have entire chapters of their lives that I know nothing about.
But when I started this podcast, the idea was never to go looking for a particular story, or to find someone who would fit neatly into a season or a theme. I wanted to create a place where women could choose to share their stories because they wanted them to be heard.
For years, I've had women tell me things about their lives. And I think there's something very special about being trusted with someone's story. I don't take that lightly.
The hope with this podcast has always been that women will listen to other women's stories and perhaps recognize a little of themselves. Maybe they'll remember something from their own lives, or think of a woman they know who has a story worth sharing.
And maybe they'll think, I have a story I'd like to tell.
So if you've ever thought, "I'd love to tell Karen my story, but she hasn't asked me," I want you to know that I'm probably not going to ask.
It's not because I don't want to hear it. It's because I want you to want to share it.
You don't need to have lived some extraordinary life. You don't need to have overcome something enormous or achieved something remarkable. Sometimes the simplest stories are the ones that stay with us the longest.
After all, my mother only wrote about ten pages in that book, and one of the things I loved most was finding out that my uncle once used her underpanties as a kite tail.
So if you have a story you'd like to share, please reach out through my Tell Me Your Story page at karenamy.com/tell-me-your-story. I'd love to hear from you.
And in the meantime, maybe try asking someone if they've ever built a kite.
You never know what you might find out.
It's not because I don't want to hear it. It's because I want you to want to share it.
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A QUESTION TO CARRY
Have you ever built a kite?
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In love, light and laughter,
Karen