The STUFF Sisters

Selfies

I want to be able to look back – even if over just a few months or years – and see us. Us as we are. Us as we were.

I have been mesmerized by selfies for a while.

Three Hours and Forty Years

Last Friday took me three hours down the road from my home and forty years back in time.

It was the only day on the calendar that was “free”. When my Sunday New York Times arrived over a month ago and had a flyer in it about a show at the Wichita Art Museum, I did a double-take. Wichita? In Kansas? Then I grabbed my calendar to pick a date to go. A Friday three weeks away was the only day on the whole Month-at-a-Glance that had nothing on it, or at least the only one that could handle six hours of driving for art.

It was a show of pieces by Hudson River School painters curated by the New York Historical Society. Three words hooked me. Hudson. River. School.

When I was in fifth grade at William Cullen Bryant Elementary School, a docent from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art brought a huge – to all of us – painting from the museum. She talked about it at length, asked us to “look more closely,” and urged us to answer “What else do you see?” with real words.

I was mesmerized by this piece. It was full to the edges with deep, dark corners of trees and bushes. Greens that ran to black but still showed leaves and vines. It was filled near the top of the frame with white clouds and a sky of every shade of blue. A top corner of the canvas held a foreboding cloud out in the distance that warned of change coming. It had animals and flowers and rocks and cliffs and possibly a waterfall. I am unclear on the waterfall, but there was water coursing through it somewhere.

I learned years later that, in the late ’70s, the pieces that went out with the docents to schools were replicas. Being very close to true size and with frames that were gold and fancy, if not as expensive at the originals, they were breathtaking to my 10-year-old self. They even showed brush marks.

I looked deeper, and, when we were told we could come closer, I did. I gazed in to the darkest corner for more and then up to the sky for relief.

I vividly remember telling my parents about it, probably yet that night. I nagged that we had to go to the museum “soon” to see it. I wanted to take them there and walk them to exactly where it hung, knowing I had no idea exactly where that was but sure that someone would know about the huge painting that a blonde lady had brought to my school just a few days ago! I wanted to show my parents what the docent had shown me. I wanted them to look closely and see more than I did. I wanted to talk about it like she did.

The docent kept mentioning the “Hudson River School,” and I just knew that was a place I should go to school. She made it sound like college, whatever that was. A place of learning with dark corners and majestic skies is what hooked into my brain.

I walked to school back then, and my family could have walked to The Nelson had we chosen to. I also walked to the Plaza Library at the corner of Ward Parkway and Main Street. The kids’ section was in the basement, but I knew that any books or information about the Hudson River School would be listed upstairs in the big card racks. I loved that building, and I really, really loved those 3×5 cards and talking to the librarians. Slipping into the Dewey Decimal language always felt special and foreign. And grown up. Sometimes they would give me “the look” that silently willed us younger people to realize we shouldn’t be upstairs. Not this time.

I was happy to know more about the Hudson River School and the painters who defined it using the pile of books I scavenged from the shelves. I spent a fair amount of time that day looking at many paintings in several books, but I was devastated to learn that there was no physical school. I had no desire then – nor do I have now – to be an artist, but I was crushed to find I could never, truly go there.

Except at a museum, which I go to every chance I get. The Hudson River School genre is no longer a true favorite, but it can hold me in its sway for the length of a special visit. I can still hear that docent and see that massive painting she carried into our room. I can still feel the old library and the gazes of those wise women behind the desk as I traipsed by them with my large format books to sit by the big windows.

Last Friday took me three hours down the road from my home and forty years back in time. On the ride back, as the sun was fading in the Flint Hills, I remembered that the original painting I saw when I was ten is still in the collection of The Nelson. I saw it a few years ago as I was hurriedly cruising through the museum on my way to a meeting. It stopped me in my tracks.

I stayed riveted to that spot just as long as I could, and I still can’t tell you if there is a waterfall.

p.s. All the photos above are tiny pieces of paintings I saw at the special exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum. I was enthralled by the skies and water in this particular set of works. The show runs through April 30, 2017. We also strolled the permanent collection and found the woman below. I love her.

Rest In Peace

School photos? Unruly cowlick? He cut my hair until my fifty-first year. No one else did. Not ever in all those years. Not even when I moved whole states away.

Almost thirty-five years after leaving junior high school, my French teacher walked into our business this past weekend and told my sister the saddest news of our year. A dear friend – an acquaintance, a confidante, a secret keeper – had died. And not recently, but six months ago. Unbeknownst to us all, and a shock.

John Creighton started cutting my hair when I was ten years old. I probably sat on a phone book in his chair at the swanky Salon Klaus on The Plaza. He cut the hair on the heads of my parents first, and what propelled me to follow suit is unknown. School photos? Unruly cowlick? He cut my hair until my fifty-first year. No one else did. Not ever in all those years. Not even when I moved whole states away. Continue reading “Rest In Peace”

Truly Blessed

It isn’t hard for us to find reasons to be thankful. We are truly blessed. Yet some days it is harder than others. Sometimes the din of daily challenges drowns out the good in our lives.

It isn’t hard for us to find reasons to be thankful. We are truly blessed. Yet some days it is harder than others. Sometimes the din of daily challenges drowns out the good in our lives. There are days when we are just trying to get to the end of the day without stumbling and landing flat on our faces.

This year we have had many challenges and many blessings. The most notable challenge has been having both our father and our mother fighting cancer. They are vibrant, strong, and engaged parents. They both have big personalities. They both are very strong-willed and opinionated. They are both loving and actively involved in our lives and our children’s lives.

You can imagine how scary it is to have them both facing life-threatening diagnoses. It has been humbling and all-consuming at times. Our parents have always set their expectations for us very high. They have led by example. They insist that we suit up, show up, and engage in our careers, our family lives, and our community. They have very different personal motivations and beliefs, but they share the same core value of being accountable and present. There is no “wall-flowering” allowed in the Simmons family.

STUFF celebrated its 20th birthday last week. Since our store’s birthday also falls on the anniversary of our younger sister’s death, we do not make a big deal about it. However, we do enjoy the feelings of success and pride in having built this amazing business that shares so much with so many. We mention this because this year we were given the opportunity to expand our footprint in Brookside and move our store to a larger space up the street. It was exciting and inspiring. It was a dream come true. It was also a stressful and overwhelming decision about our future in business. In the end, we decided to stay put. We are happy with our choice and know the dream will continue to grow and thrive.

Continue reading “Truly Blessed”

Wearing It

This past week has been crazy busy. And crazy.

I looked down in my closet today and saw the whole week – and every event I attended and every hour I worked – in one pile. Shoes right where I had left them the minute I took them off.

Continue reading “Wearing It”

She Was Seventy Feet Tall

I looked up that day into the far distant branches of the tree above him and noticed I could see more of the sky than ever. The leaves seemed smaller, and the branches less full.

“I…can’t…talk…about…this…right…now.” My words were choppy as I tried to catch my breath with my voice wobbling into sobs.

In my marriage, we divide and conquer. We share a great deal of the responsibilities of owning a home that’s over a hundred year old. In fairness, my husband takes on more of the burden in the fourth quarter, my busiest. I, however, rule the other nine months.

Coordination of the trimming of our three large, old trees fell to him. He called the arborists, set the appointments, kept the appointments, and booked the work.

Continue reading “She Was Seventy Feet Tall”

10 Questions for Amy Meya

We are excited to launch a series of blogs about the creative people we represent. These posts will feature 10 questions – chosen by our employee team at the store. The 10 answers to those questions have been written by the artists, creators and inventors who make the work we proudly sell. We have included a photo of the featured person (supplied by them) and a few images of their work currently available at our store. Pursue good stuff.

We are excited to launch a series of blogs about the creative people we represent.

The 10 Questions for Artists, Creators and Inventors Series will feature ten questions – chosen by our employee team. The ten answers have been written by the artists, creators and/or inventors who make the work we proudly sell. We have included a photo of the featured person, supplied by them, and a few images of their work currently available at our store.

10 Questions for Amy Meya: Ceramic Artist

1. As a child, what did you wish to become when you grew up?

From the time we first worked with clay in elementary school I told my mom: “if I could just be in a room with lots of windows and work with clay all day, my life would be fulfilled”, she said “yeah, well, that is a nice dream”. Dreams can come true!

2. Describe a real-life situation that inspired you?

When my first son was only a few months old NCECA, the ceramics arts conference was here in KC, one of my best friends, Angela, and I took him to all the galleries to see the work. The following year Angela and I decided to do all the gallery shows again, this time the conference was in San Diego, my sister was living there, so we had a free place to crash. We took my then one year old with us and went to all the gallery shows, he must have picked up on all our ooooohhhing and aaahhhhing, when we walked into the 6th or so gallery he pointed to a large red platter hanging on the wall and said “oh, wow!” These were his first two words strung together. That moment inspires me.

3. What’s your favorite book or movie of all time and why did it speak to you so much?

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Mr. Mom”, my sisters and I would watch this over and over, we could quote it the entire way through. I love this movie for so many reasons, but now, (I re-watched it when it came out on Netflix) I love it because it is a movie that demonstrates that staying home with kids is also a full time job and families need to figure out a work/home balance.

4. What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever been?

The “Nature Island” Dominica in the West Indies. Rainbows everyday, waterfalls, black sand beaches, steep mountains and a thick lush rain forest. Heaven on earth!

5. What’s your favorite smell in the whole world?

Garlic cooking.

6. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I can’t pick just one, I have a deep seated wanderlust. Lately I have been wanting to go to New Zealand and Thailand, and Indonesia, I guess generally Southeast Asia. Also, South America, I would love to go to Peru and Argentina.

7. Which fictional character do you wish you could meet?

Here I go again dating myself, but Indiana Jones.

8. What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?

Work on your goals everyday, even if it is only a little bit some days, just do something to move yourself toward your goals because it all adds up in the end.

9. Cake or pie?

Definitely pie, sweet potato pie that isn’t sweet, a more savory pie spiced with lots of rich favors.

10. What is your dream project?

My dream, and current goal, is to figure out a way to work in the Caribbean for four months out of the year, the extremely cold four months to be exact.

– Amy Meya, September 2016

We hope you enjoy this new series. Stay tuned for more. Pursue good stuff…

Behemoths and Mach Speed

Our son has been back in New Jersey, where he goes to college, since mid-June. He was home briefly for deep sleep, a little touch of his old life, and a thrilling one-time experience.

Our son has been back in New Jersey, where he goes to college, since mid-June. He was home briefly for deep sleep, a little touch of his old life, and a thrilling one-time experience. It was a month just like any other – it moved slowly for the first few days and then just went way too fast.

He has an internship at his university this summer and is loving every minute of it. When we talk on the phone on Sundays, I can hear the smile in his voice as he tells me about the past week and snippets of his weekend. He loves what he’s doing, and he loves being “in the City” for the summer. The campus is quieter, but New York is seven minutes away when he gets off work.

In my time after work and on my vacation, I have continued to make plans for recovering parts of our home that had been dedicated to his upbringing. One of those rooms is one we referred to as “Dakota’s Playroom” when he was a young child and “Dakota’s Sitting Room” when he was in high school. The air hockey table is still in the center of the room, but his desk is near the window where he sat every night for the four years of high school and plowed through homework.

This air hockey table is now doing double duty as the table for LEGO creations left by our young man. The behemoth was carefully covered with a custom cotton sheet to protect the little tiny air holes from becoming clogged with the dust that settles when children move along. A constant and huge reminder of the quickness of childhood and lazy days, it has seen little use for years.

For the past several weeks, I have been churning over in my head my plans for this room’s next incarnation. It has a fireplace in it that has not seen a flame or log in twenty years. Parental exhaustion and limited time are the culprits. The nightly rushes toward a child’s bedtime did not make for the quiet caring that a fire demands. Peace and quiet and a slightly slower pace have just come back in style around here.

Last night, I began the reclamation of at least the desk, knowing that, if I can get through that, the rest will fall into place. Its surface has remained strewn with his keepsakes and treasures for the past year. Almost a year ago, I ceased crying every time I walked by this museum of study. These are daily journeys, and the dust got deeper and deeper as I was still unable to really move anything.

It’s now empty, the desk. Nothing went in the trash can, but all was thoroughly dusted and either placed neatly in the drawers of the desk or taken down the hall to his bedroom and placed on shelves and dresser tops. Tear-free, I moved silently through the task, only stopping occasionally to answer the dog’s questions about particular placement.

Tear-free. Well, for over one hour.

Completely done and turning to change clothes in an adjoining room, I saw the air hockey table and the LEGOs. I had the common sense to not use the cotton rag saturated with Pledge to wipe my eyes.

That’s what trashed out tee shirts are for, and I was handily inside one. They quietly soak up memories of long afternoons of “competitions” between a short young man and his taller mother. During back-to-back games, I worried constantly about him losing teeth as I gently pushed that floating puck towards him. How horrible, I thought, if it jumped that one inch barrier and took out all his front teeth? How will I explain this to every one, especially his father? He won constantly, because he didn’t care how hard he hit it back in my direction. He was looking for mach speed. I was always a little too slow in my reactions to his amazing force.

The air hockey table and the LEGOs are to be dealt with next. The LEGOs have found a permanent home in my mind’s plans for the room. The air hockey table will be finding a new home outside of these walls.

Damn. Nineteen years flew by. One competition, one night of homework, and one LEGO creation at a time.

p.s. All photos in this post were taken in the short time he was home this summer. The one below was captured at the airport when we sent him back East, just minutes before a torrential downpour inside my car. It passed like summer rain, and I quickly dried my face and turned the car toward home.

Thirty Five Years Down The Trail

I was raised to believe that women and girls can do anything. I still believe that and pass it on to women far younger than me. If you say you can’t, then you’ve set yourself up for failure. If you say you will give it your best, you’re more than halfway there.

I am a Girl Scout. I will always be a Girl Scout. I am not a Troop Leader and am not in charge of a pack of young women.

Just this past weekend, I returned to the Girl Scout camp of my childhood and ran smack-dab into fantastic memories that were laced with the amazing women who were troop leaders and were in charge of packs of young women.

Girl Scouts is more than cookies. Girl Scouts is leadership training at its core. It is subtle and covert in its training, so as to not cause bucking from those who aren’t ready to be “trained”.

If you tell a ten year old they are being “trained”, they will most likely tell you “so long”. But if you cloak the training in figuring it out for yourself, for accounting for your actions, for calculating progress, for tracking efforts, and for showing others the ins and outs, you will end up with a young woman – and a grown woman – who can hold her own and has the ability to troubleshoot and succeed. And, most importantly, one who will find the lessons in a failure or set-back.

The young women who were my counselors at camp were most likely only five to ten years older than me. I talked to one a few days ago in the wilds of Missouri, and I vividly remember her. If I could find my Juniors book, her handwriting and counselor name (Snickers) would be in there.

I can only imagine it was written with a firm hand and in ink. Much like a yearbook, at the end of camp every summer you had your counselors sign your book. I thought these women hung the moon, and in two I can easily recall desiring to be just like them. Strong. Sure-footed. Fearless. A leader.

At ten, when I first went to camp, I was none of those four things. Well, OK, I was strong but tried to hide it. That comes with being taller than all your friends and therefore “bigger”.

I spent way too much time trying to blend in, look shorter, and be seen as weak. Crazy concepts to me now, but crystal clear in my mind.

I went to Nashville Summer Camp for only four summers. They have blended into one long summer in my memories, but the distinct differences in the four summers came screaming back to me when I stood under the very old oak trees a few days ago. Water Wonderful was one. Outback Adventures another. Two more that held my focus then but whose names escape me.

I have never shied away from saying I am a Girl Scout, and I never will. I was able to walk the hills and trails of the camp of my youth for her last day of seeing campers, having walked those same paths thirty-five years ago.

The camp I remember – Camp Oakledge – has changed hands, and the land will now be the responsibility of others. I can only hope that the new ownership has a few Girl Scouts in their midst who will know exactly how to leave the land better than they found it, a basic tenet of Girl Scouting.

p.s. Those boxes of Girl Scout cookies do change the lives of young women all over your city. They make strong, sure-footed, fearless young leaders and help fund all they wish to accomplish. You don’t have to eat the cookies, but I always recommend buying them.

Knee High to a Grasshopper

I will never forget him standing there mesmerized at the glass of a fully-lit vintage jewelry case. Quiet. Arms by his sides. Eyes bright. I took a moment to really watch him.

There was a time, not long ago, when my 6′ 3″ son had to stand on tippy toes to see anything counter height. Food as I prepared it. Paperwork being looked at by my husband and me.

When he was five years old, and “knee high to a grasshopper” as my grandfather used to say, I stopped in to my second favorite store at the time, my own store being my first favorite. It was a clothing store that had been in Westport when we grew our business there, but it had moved to the Prairie Village shops not long after STUFF left Westport.

We were driving back from lunch with my father, and I thought we would just “bop in” for a quick look. My son was always delightful in shops and not a terror. I made a quick decision on a shirt and moved to the counter to pay. Nap time was approaching, and the clock was ticking to get home.

I will never forget him standing there mesmerized at the glass of a fully-lit vintage jewelry case. Quiet. Arms by his sides. Eyes bright. I took a moment to really watch him. He looked up at me with wide eyes and said, “Mom. I want to buy that for you,” in a voice that still burns me to remember.

On the bottom shelf was a double-strand turquoise, silver, and crystal necklace with a turquoise bead pendant. It was on the other side of a perfectly placed thread of red embroidery floss that delineated the items on sale from those that had yet to make the cut. This piece had made the cut.

The woman checking me out knew me and shopped at my store occasionally. She said, “What did he say?”

“He said he is going to buy that necklace for me.”

“Ahhhhhh…..How sweet.He obviously knows you like blue!”

We proceeded with the “how much” – with her asking him how much money he had, and with me buying it, and with her handing the gift-wrapped bag to him.

He beamed and glowed and gave me the greatest gift of waiting to fall asleep until we got home. Two hours in his own bed, not the car seat. Well, and that amazing necklace.

I loved that necklace to pieces. Two pieces, in fact. One day, earlier this year, it just gave out at the toggle. I was visited by this terrific memory and put the pieces in a Ziploc until I could deal with it without crying.

Near spring, I met with the artists at Hoop Dog Studio with my baggie in hand. I asked that the pieces be used to make a new piece. I wanted them to re-design it and use the beads any way they saw fit.

And now I have this. Gorgeous.

I am not the same woman I was when I was a young mother, and this new style fits me perfectly. One long strand and no symmetry.

I miss the little boy at the glass counter every day. Most mothers would give their left arms for little pieces of their children’s childhoods back. The day they reached for your hand and the sky was so blue and they didn’t let go. The night the sky was clear and they didn’t fuss once all the way through the midway at the State Fair. The day they stood up for themselves against odds. The high dive. The double dip that dripped on everything clutched in pudgy fingers.

Happy Mother’s Day.

p.s. No real, official research was done on which arm a mother would give for her children. I assumed left because the right arm is so useful.