This one is for my more devoted readers. Those of you who have stuck with me over the years, encouraging my playfulness. Or maybe it’s for those who anticipated the next newsletter landing in your inbox – hoping for its perfect resonance. Whether you needed it or not. Or perhaps it is for those who rarely read it, but when you did, something struck you as funny or truthful or painful. And you sent me a note back to share that it mattered.
For the newsletters you have read and saved or the ones you skipped or maybe even deleted…the book is coming. All the newsletters in one spot. Getting ready. Incubating. Developing. Deepening. In some ways not such a big deal as most of them have already been read and published. In other ways, the parts and pieces necessary to pull them into a compilation that is what it should be…or what it can be…has been an enormous challenge. It is sort of like an adolescent graduating and discovering the need to find a real job? Formal. For real.
Reminiscent, then, of the vast overwhelm I recall feeling the summer after college commencement, finding myself in a determined combination of fight and flight. Half the time remaining reticent, hiding behind loose expectation and the other half emerging, fiercely ambitious— let’s get on with it already! In either instance, aware that relying on my own ability to deliver a final stamp of approval on any decision was reckless.
So, it was in this state of dewy-eyed wonder that I sought out the counsel of a fellow writer and industry insider. Would she read some of the newer parts that I was working on to make it a book? Could she help me scaffold myself? Be sure I wasn’t overindulging in either my reticence or ferocity? I hated asking. Even in the knowing that it was the right thing to do, it felt raw and risky.
But she held me and my work with great care and gave me an astounding sense of trust. Trust as the three part harmony of authenticity, empathy, and competence. She served her feedback up with healthy helpings of each and made my project instantly and profoundly better. I knew she wasn’t falsifying the parts that worked and didn’t work. I knew she held the sacredness of being an artist with deep compassion. I knew she knew what she was doing. And I knew none of these worked without the other. It was so powerful. I loved it.
Immediately, I wanted to believe that in our collaboration with architects and trades we are doing exactly the same thing for our clients. That what starts off as a private and fantastical vision gets better when it is inputted by people you trust. Not to take it over and make it ours but to join you to make it so fully yours— even better than what you imagined. That rich relief when someone outside yourself totally gets you and braids the seemingly knotted threads you hand over into a beautiful weave. That aha moment of realizing you had it all along but with an edit here and a shift there it is so much better. That grace, when giving up on what never quite fit or worked, is actually the best thing to do.
In the end, it turns out it all takes a little more courage than we might have first thought. Best then, to find partners who see the end just as brilliantly as we do and who will, with authenticity, empathy and competence, offer a potent and loving way to get there.
Let me know if you’d like a copy…
In trust and harmony,
Allison
