My story.

As I said last week, I might not be qualified to tell you how to run a business. But, at this point in my life I can consider myself a certified risk taker, soul searcher and creative problem solver—all things that I believe are the building blocks of entrepreneurship. This is my story.

It all started on the 4th of July after my first year in college. House music bumping, ping pong balls flying, friends throwing up in bushes. I looked around at these people around me—classmates who all seemed to wear the same clothes and tell the same jokes—and felt strongly that I was not one of them. I didn’t know who I was instead, but in a matter of months I had un-enrolled in my sophomore year at Trinity, and bought a ticket to East Africa on a service learning trip. To find myself.

And from there the searching didn’t stop—I went to an ashram in the Bahamas, an intentional community in upstate New York, a hippie school in Vermont, spiritual center in Hawaii, and Buddhist college in Colorado. I won’t bore you with the details, but over the years I got comfortable in the uncomfortable, I asked a lot of questions, and was clearly not on the path that most people my age were walking.

Now, what the heck does that have to do with entrepreneurship?, you might be wondering. Isn’t that just an entitled rich girl traveling the world to avoid taking responsibility for her life? In many ways, yes, it was. I made a lot of decisions I regret over the years—I prioritized my own journey over my relationships with others. I lost friends. I stunted my education and professional growth multiple times, like a blooming plant continually cut at the node, unable to fully grow. I got rid of everything I knew of home, seeing myself as somehow more enlightened than the people in my past, at that party and elsewhere. But I wasn’t. And now, now that the searching has ceased, I have my regrets, but I have to look for the silver lining.

While I have, since returning home, uncovered a newfound loyalty to all things I left behind—family, sense of place, staying—I have also found a home for the skills that I built in all my wandering, in building my own business.

I did not learn to process data in Excel, nor to improve my website for SEO. I did not learn how to blend watercolor or draw architectural designs. But I did learn how to go against the grain. I did learn how to dig deep past what everyone else thought I should do, to find what I really wanted. I learned how to get by with no mentors, no teacher or boss telling me what to do. I learned how to start things completely from scratch—a book display in a cafe where I worked, a spoken-word poetry performance, a blog, a monthly community meal, a monthly open mic in another cafe where I worked—and to figure it out as I went. And I learned, through it all, to keep going.

I don’t know that I believe we are made or destined to do certain things, but when I look back I can see how my roundabout path got me to here, and I am grateful for it. And now, I am making the choice to use that all as fuel. To keep going.

What experiences in your life have primed you for stepping outside the box, taking risks, and doing it yourself? I look forward to turning this into a space to share stories of grit, creativity and transformation for others on a similar roundabout path, slowly finding their way.

Dream small.

January 4th, 2021. I want to be more intentional about my life, my relationships and my business. They say “start where you are,” so I pull a planner for 2020-2021 out of the recycling bin that my mom gave me in case I didn’t like the other one she gave me. It is covered in flamingos and will only cover half of the year ahead and it is what I have in front of me. I write down five goals for my business—improve product quality, improve business systems, educate myself, build wholesale relationships, and start advertising and growing business. My desk is covered in designs for Valentine’s Day cards that I may or may not use, along with paints, paintbrushes, a ruler, and a list of people to thank. This is where I am, and where I want to be feels huge and imperceptibly far away.

They say dream big, but I wonder if it should really be to dream small. Every day. In bite-sized-chunks that you can digest. Do what is in front of you. Write one page. Reach out to one person. I am glad that I have these goals in front of me—to make my life better—but I also know myself. I know I won’t be able to make them happen if I don’t even know where to start. And if I can’t show up to them in small, tangible ways every day.

And so I break them down. Into questions. How can I improve my marketing today, by setting up my social media posts for the week, reaching out to a friend, and watching an instructional video on Youtube? How can I trick myself into feeling like I am growing things, by propagating plant cuttings that have been sitting in water all winter, or putting on an outfit that makes me feel artsy and interesting? How can I use my day off to put my head down and work, and also open up my heart and play?

These are questions I am here to ask myself, in front of you, on this blog that I am re-beginning in 2021. This is a place for creatives, dreamers, and people who feel like there is something more out there for them. Because I’ve been there. I’ve been the scavenger, leaving everything behind to find my purpose. I’ve gone to three different colleges, I’ve worked for many different people in many different places, and the best part—I still haven’t gotten where I am going. I am not here to sit on an ivory tower and tell you how to be successful, because honestly, I don’t know. I am just here to share the ride. `

One letter at a time,

Sage

My mother always taught me to write thank you notes.

Whether it was for a bracelet from my grandmother that I didn’t really like, a trip to stay at a family member’s home, or a fun night at a friend’s house, I was always taught this simple lesson: write a thank you note. I used to think it was formulaic, dry, disingenuous—why would I thank someone for a present that I didn’t really like, or a family trip I didn’t really want to go on in the first place? Wasn’t this gesture just a forced product of my WASPY upbringing—full of dinner-table-niceties and smalltalk—and not an actual, genuine response to the gift? I was a cynical, always-questioning-authority-young-person, who didn’t like being told what to do. But for some reason, when it came to thank you notes, I did it anyway, despite my grievances. On sage colored stationary monogrammed with my name, on lined notebook paper, on collaged magazine cutouts, I would craft letters of gratitude to grandparents, relatives and family friends. I would thank them for their thought, share a small anecdote, and express hopes to see them again soon. I would sign my name at the bottom and send it off, checking an item off of my to-do list. And for many years, thank you notes were just that—the completion of a task.

And yet, somewhere along the way, my thank you notes started to merge into something more. Letters sent back-and-forth with my aging grandfather, as pen pals. Father’s Day cards sent to my dad as my annual opportunity to open up to him. Thank you notes sent to hiring managers to show them that, though I might not always have the perfect interview responses or resume, I do have it in me to do something thoughtful, and genuine, and from the heart.

These days, in our fleeting digital world, greeting cards are all we have left of that genuineness, and sometimes all we have left of each other. They are a way of sidestepping the screen—that constant influx of images and information and words coming at you one after another after another—and entering into the tactile, the tangible, the real. Someone had to touch them. Had to take out a pen, press it into a piece of paper and make those interesting shapes we know of as letters. Had to hope for enough ink. This person, this real person, comes through to you in a greeting card—comes through in their swooping handwriting, their smudges of ink on the side, their lopsided stamp application. Sending a greeting card is sending a piece of yourself.

And so, it is for this reason that I am so grateful to have stuck it out with greeting cards. I’m so grateful for every time I have had the opportunity to send a thank you note to my boyfriend’s mom (who now jokes that she could offer me a tissue and I’d write her a thank you note). I’m so grateful for every time I get to make a friend a birthday card with an inside joke, or tuck a small love letter under my boyfriend’s pillow. And, I’m so grateful for every time I get to help my customers do the same.

A thank you note is not just a thank you note. A greeting card is not just a greeting card. It is a reaching out, a hand outstretched in the dark, a flag planted in the moon. It was our way of saying “I was here.”

I guess I have another thank you note to send.

When I started this whole thing it had nothing to do with greeting cards.

It was January, it was my birthday, and so I bought myself a set of watercolor paints with money from a gift card I had received. I was going through some internal struggles at the time and just needed some inspiration. So I started to draw these small, simple, caricature-style self portraits, depicting myself in a way that was strong, creative and empowered. Things I felt about myself but was having trouble gaining access to at the time. So I drew them into being. I had no formal training; I didn't watch instructional Youtube videos; I just drew. And slowly, over time, I started developing a style that was mine.⁠ ⁠

It wasn't until months later, in the middle of the pandemic, lying on the floor, that the idea came to me to turn these little drawings into greeting cards. It didn't come to me in a dream, it didn't come to me in a vision from my higher self, it came to me from my sweet boyfriend who had seen me sit in my room for hours bent over these small card-shaped paintings, only to complain to him later about not having something to do that felt like mine. I had been searching for it for months--something that would give me purpose and joy and meaning--as if it were some faraway thing. But, when Matt said that to me, to make my paintings and sell them as cards personalized to the customer, it was the tiniest tap on the shoulder, showing me that that thing had actually been right in front of me the whole time.⁠ ⁠

They say necessity is the mother of invention. They just don't always say that sometimes, the necessity lies in the inventor herself.

“I Think I’ve Always Been an Entrepreneur,”

I thought to myself the other day, on a run down my favorite street in the neighborhood. Just as I had that thought, I heard a quiet voice from behind me, yelling out “Water! Water! Water!” I looked and, yes, there was a little boy sitting in front of a table selling bottled water to passersby. Sweat was pouring down my face and I wanted to keep going, but I had to stop to say hello to this little boy. I didn’t have the money to buy a water from him but I wanted to take the time to encourage him for his efforts. I told him to keep it up. What I didn’t tell him was that he reminded me of myself.

I too used to set up shop on my front lawn, yelling out sales calls to passersby. It began on Nantucket, selling powdered lemonade and Chips Ahoy cookies taken out of their package and put on a nice plate. Sometimes I would even paint shells and sell them. Sometimes I would end the day with cups filled with cash, others I’d leave with pockets full of sand. But every summer, I would get out there with my little stand and wait.

I’ll never forget going into the shoe store in town one year and paying for a pair of blue flip flops—worth $20—all in coins. While the cashier looked at me like I was crazy, I could only beam back pride, for I had earned every penny I put on that counter. It went on from there. I started babysitting, and put up posters around ‘Sconset advertising my skills. I remember walking around with a wallet so fat with cash that it couldn’t even fit into my back pocket. I started a savings bank in my early teens and have slowly been adding to it, bit by bit. I have almost always had a job and I have almost always brought my entrepreneurial sense to that job—finding a way to make whatever business I worked for just a little bit better.

I think I’ve always been an entrepreneur.

Which is why, I thought to myself running down the street drenched in sweat, I’ve always struggled in the mainstream. It’s why I went to three different colleges, why I wandered the world looking for my purpose, and why I’ve still struggled to find it. I’ve struggled in the mainstream idea of success—that classic “go to a good college get a good job make a good living” notion—not because I am not meant to be successful. Not because I don’t have talent, or creativity, or a solid work ethic.

I’ve struggled because I’ve been trying to use that talent, creativity and work ethic in the wrong places. I’ve been trying to shove myself into someone else’s box or business, rather than thinking of what I uniquely bring to it. Rather than creating my own.

So, I am grateful to be here doing just that—whacking through the weeds of what it means to be an entrepreneur, a small business owner, and an artist, all at the same time.

This blog will uncover just that, and more, in my journey of building a business, one step at a time.

Thank you for coming along for the ride.