Sophisticated Craft

The Manifesto of Style as set out in Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design resonates with me. Its prime directive, "Communicate who you are in all you do," is well-aligned with my desires and goals, and a Style Statement seemed like a great lens through which to focus "who I am" in "all I do".

But despite twenty hours of engrossed effort answering the Style Statement workbook questions, I wasn't getting it. I just couldn't seem to distill my style into two words that felt right. And your Style Statement, above all, is supposed to feel right.

So yesterday I called for help, and in less than an hour my sister, with prompts from ravurian and owzers, cleared it all up.

( 'Communicate who you are in all you do.' )

Sophisticated Craft: a followup

Because the universe loves a joke...

On my way home from Zumba tonight I fell off my bike. Not, you know, while rolling at speed down the hill between Skidmore and Mason Street. Not while frantically trying to get across Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard at the Going Street crossing in the dark.

No, I fell off my bike while it wasn't even moving. Right in front of my house. *eyeroll*

I was trying to roll into my back yard, which involves a U-turn from the street onto the sidewalk, and then a sharp right from the sidewalk into my garden path. It's always wobbly, and I give myself one point if my front tire makes it onto the garden path before I have to stop and walk, two points for both tires, and all the points if I actually manage to ride right up into the back yard.

Well, I could see I wasn't going to make the turn from the sidewalk to the garden path. Part of me--the part with its hands on the brakes--wanted to stop, but part of me wasn't quite ready yet.

Result? I went a tiny bit farther than Eleanor and landed in the dirt and dying day lilies; Eleanor (who weighs about 45 pounds) tipped over on top of me, my earphone cord got caught up in the handlebars, and for a longish and really ridiculous moment, I could not figure out how to get up.

That, my friends, is Sophisticated Craft in action.

No harm befell me, my phone, the ivory leather jacket I was wearing, or Eleanor O the Dutch Bike. Only the cat witnessed my Style Statement.