Here I go.
When I was three, I toddled out back of our newly-rented cape in Amherst, MA and found my way up to the zip-line that stretched from maple-to-maple across our tiny yard. The other people who lived with me were my mother, father and brother, Anton. None of these people were around to see me climb up to the platform where the zipline was hooked, wiggle my little body to the edge, grab on and and whhheeeeeeeeeeeeeee, whisk myself to the other tree.
My moment of triumph was brief. What initially felt sneaky and brave quickly turned into petrified and freaked out. When I landed, I wrapped my doughy little legs around the tree and heard the zipper zip away. I could not reach it dangling in the middle of the yard. Meanwhile, I was suspended over a prickly bush with no one to save me.
I’m good at jumping into things. My hardwiring is set to: curious, optimistic, and trusting, which is how I ended up here, today, doing this. This being the writing process to both tell my story, but also to figure out what the heck happened. How I got here, who I am, and what it all means. No big deal.
When I was nineteen I started a company by mistake. I failed math, worked with monkeys, and was an anthropology major (we are not known for starting companies). I found a recipe for lip balm in a book, and decided I would make a batch. My mother was both a witness and an accomplice. She was used to following my lead, procuring snacks and rides and ballet slippers, or horse-riding helmets. This would be another passing phase, we assumed. Only it wasn’t.
It defined my life in a way that didn’t make a lot of sense for a long time. What did make sense was going with what felt right. From tromping next door to Mr. Dahowski’s to get beeswax that he apparently kept in secret dressers under his apple trees. to trekking to Bread and Circus with Mom (long before it was Whole Foods, and way before it was Amazon) to get sweet almond oil and essential oils. All of that felt right because I was making something. Why was I making something? And why lip balm? It was random. I found a recipe, I knew what lip balm was, and it sounded like a fun idea. I did not come from business people, but I certainly came from makers.
My mom moved from Paris to Boston when she was 24, and like the stereotypical French mother she made everything. Her creations happened almost exclusively in the kitchen. Salad dressings made with Dijon mustard shaken in a jar, crown roasts of lamb with tiny chef's hats on each bone, tuille almond cookies almost see-through they were rolled so thin, that she cooled on wine bottles so they kept a circular shape. Tony, my father, was a doctor professionally, but an artist in his heart. He wove tapestries that hung in every room in our house, and even wove a metal lampshade of brown and orange wool in the 1970’s when we moved up the street from the zip-line house, to the one I grew up in. Tony died in 1983, he was forty one, I was twelve, Anton was thirteen. Everything changed, but our house stayed the same. The dining room table is the same one my parents bought in 1973. In fact, I was just home last night in the kitchen with my mom, and we made a batch of lip balm for old time’s sake. On the same brown hexagonal tiles I poured my first batch on in 1991.
The counters and Mom’s house are the same, but we are not. Life happened and business happened. There was rarely a dull moment, there were many laughs, and tears, and some cries for help.
Which brings me back to little-me suspended above the bramble bushes. What did I do all alone, seemingly with no one to save me? Well, I did what any smart-thinking three year old did. I screamed and shrieked until everyone came out of the house (there was company, visiting relatives, always). They tried not to laugh and I tried to breathe. Anton pushed the zipper back towards me, a few solid pushes over the prickle bush and I grabbed hold, sniffed my sniffles, and made my way back to safety.
Safety is not my thing. Jumping into the unknown is what I do. Winging it, usually in the eleventh hour is when magical products name pop out of my mouth, or production problems are solved. Pressure is my friend, and despite this lip balm gig that has defined my entire adult working life, the wacky adventures of lipbalmland keep things exciting, new and scary, which keeps me in the game.