The Call of Simplicity

Recently, I spent a week in Tennessee to celebrate a milestone anniversary and during that time we visited family in Alabama on their new 40-acre property that my in-laws have so many hopes and dreams for. We ate around a big table in a screened in porch with candlelight, sang songs, played outside, and I was reminded how much I long for a simpler slower paced life.

I've been reflecting lately a lot on where I'm heading with Atèlette and realizing I need to pare things back and simplify. I think I will always struggle with wanting to do all the things and yet also wanting to amble around my days to stop and smell the roses, enjoy the sun on my face, and really slow things down.

I'm not sure how to reconcile these two sides of me. I can best describe it by the aesthetics I love equally:  the part of me that loves excess and maximalism and Victoriana. Overgrown English gardens and wilderness all clamoring for the same space. Then this other side that loves rustic minimalism, big open wide spaces where the hills are gold and barren and the sky is open open open. I think my goal is to figure out how to marry these two for Atèlette so neither side feels disparate and alone.

With all of the recent news and in my opinion, madness, of the tariff wars, I feel I am at a cross point of uncertainty. To be candid, I know I am capable of managing the current stage and phrase my small brand is in. Up until recently, the normal challenges of growing and tending to a small company felt doable. I have done it before, other than certain aspects being different, a lot of it I am already familiar with.

Then the tariffs hit, and while our garments are not produced in China or the other harder hit countries, the trade war still affects us. I speak better in metaphors and similes, so let me attempt to describe it to you:

Balancing Atèlette on a platter with other little side dishes, yes, it's a lot. At times it feels heavy for my small arms to carry, but each step forward I realize, I can handle this. My arms shake a bit, but I know it's temporary and if I can do this round once, I'll be better the next time around. I circle round a room with my little platters and the big main dish (Atèlette) and get better with each circle round. How the tariffs feel all of a sudden is the ground beneath me is now shaking and it's made of quicksand. Or it's the ground in "A Princess Bride" with the R.O.U.S and where I once felt like I was growing more confident with carrying all I am carrying, the ground beneath me is so uncertain and I cannot control it. I cannot just MOVE myself out of this place. I can't tell where the pitfalls are going to be or how many there are or how quickly they will expand and soon the entire floor is just a sinking platform. All I can hope for is to continue doing what I am doing and hoping the ground beneath me becomes still, but I don't know. 

And THAT is what vexes me the most. The not knowing and how little control I have and all the other small brands and businesses like mine. It feels like we are waiting on bated breath for the gas leak to catch up to light a flickering flame and hoping a change of wind will reroute the trajectory of a possible explosion. But it feels as if we're already witnessing the flames reflected in the irises of our eyes.

In the meantime, right now, I am taking a lot of deep slow breaths. In the meantime, what I am doing is simplifying. Because in times of great uncertainty, I feel myself desiring to pare down, cut back, and retreat into someplace safe and familiar. Lately, I have been feeling wanting to just get rid of a bunch of things. The other day I dropped off several "project" antiques and vintage at Goodwill. Just even that simple act felt like a small, tiny weight lifted off of me. Though part of my heart twinged a little to drop off that small vintage sewing table and antique coffee table with the clawfoot brass legs. But still, they both needed refinishing, and I hadn't found the time or use for them in over 4 years while they've been in my keeping. So, to someone else they go. Where they'll be appreciated and hopefully refurbished to be loved for years to come.

I am paying attention to how every decision and change feels. And all I can say, the less I have and the less I do, the more I feel I can breathe. So, at the moment really trying to figure out what to eliminate so during this really distressing time of uncertainty, I can have one free hand to hold on to something and also support and hold on to others. Because at the moment, both hands are full, but trying to take it a day at a time, to breathe, to let go, to accept that there are things beyond my control. And also honestly, to allow myself to feel the anger and anguish and the hurt, because I am human. Just a simple human trying to make a small mark of beauty in this world.