How I got My Sign on the Highway

from the archives…..how I got my sign on the highway….

If you think it can’t be done than you are absolutely right.

If you are sure it can’t be done then it will never happen.

I am always thinking about where I will take the rug studio in the next few years.

Metaphorically that is.

What direction? What is the next project?

And I need to remember that if you believe it can happen, then it will.

This sign on the highway is a great reminder of that.

Last spring, Laurie Glenn, who works with me said,”You should have one of those signs on the highway.”

I answered, “I tried to do that but I could not get it. So I am not going there.”

Then I came into my office and I thought. If you think it cannot happen, than it won’t happen.

I decided that it had been years since I tried. I called the Department of Tourism.

I learned that maybe I could have a sign.

Then I did a little dance.

I thanked Laurie for pushing me.

Then I did a little jig…just another kind of dance.

Then I waited for weeks and months until I heard that yes I could get a sign.

Then I waited for months for the sign to get put up. As soon as it did I had oatcakes delivered to the highway garage for the guys who put up my sign. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Then I danced again.

Then a few weeks later I went out and had my picture taken under it. I looked so small…like a little fairy girl standing beside it.

Then the little fairy girl did a little dance, and her little fairy friend took pictures as cars zoomed by wondering what those fairy fools were up too.

Then the fairy girl got in her truck and drove back to Amherst and on the way she turned into herself again and she realized something.

She learned that if she had to keep thinking that she could not have that sign then she would never have. She realized that if you think something won’t come true, than it won’t.

But the big thing she realized is that you have to work at it.

And that when you try, magic happens.

Sometimes that magic might not be exactly what you imagined it to be but sometimes it is just what you thought or even better.

So this little revelation is one I am carrying with me today and into the future.

Because if it can happen for me, it can happen for you.

It can happen for the people we love.

It can happen for our communities.

It can happen.

You have to believe it….but you also have to work at it.