Full Speed Ahead! Opening Day at Verdae Handmade

I’m not often at a loss for words…except perhaps when I feel overwhelmed with gratitude.

Over the months in 2013 I had made the decision that if I could not sell Verdae I would donate my business, along with my time to a non-profIt.  I considered several worthy contenders both local and in other states.  Somewhere between the research and execution of my plan something unexpected happened.

My long time friend Nancy asked me, in an extraordinarily tentative manner, if I would consider re-opening Verdae and partnering with her.  I was stunned into silence as I listened to her explain her interest in Verdae.  She told me that she understood that I would need time to consider her offer and went on to say that she understood if I didn’t want to partner with her.  When Nancy finally ran out of words, I told her it was my turn to talk.

You’d have to know that over all the years that I’ve been building this company, from the first batch of soap I ruined in Cape Hatteras fifteen years ago during a hurricane to the bars I made last year for what I thought was the last time,  I’ve yearned to have a partner.  Someone  to share the responsibility, work load, stresses and joys.  I’ve asked family and friends and considered strangers and sharks always knowing that the production workload would be mine, but that it sure would be nice to have someone helping with the endless “everything else”.  No one surfaced.

So when Nancy pitched this idea to me in early September, less than two months ago, I heard a resounding and intuitive YES explode from my being!  We immediately began having phone conferences and planning our next move which was to get Verdae out of my house.  At this point I was following Nancy’s lead, not entirely sure what was happening or maybe just unable to believe that my body was moving forward while my mind was saying, “what just happened here???”.

Shortly thereafter I approached my friend and executive coach Susan to offer her a piece of the pie in gratitude for all the professional help she had so graciously traded over the years for soap and lotion.  I’ve known Susan for a number of years. We share a mutual love of the late Sr. Joan Morris, osf  – one of my best friends and an avid Verdae supporter. I was making a Verdae Lavender lotion delivery to Susan’s house one day and lingered on her friendly porch to chat.   I asked her if she knew anyone that I could talk to about business decisions.  I had no idea that she was a professional executive coach.  When I posed that question, she looked at me and said, “well…..uh..me.!?”  I remember my feeling of embarrassment hoping that she didn’t think that I had set her up.

And then there were three…..partners. It wasn’t long before we found our beautiful new space on Ware St., the perfect place for our business, and then found the retail furniture at the Habitat Re-Store that had recently been donated by the Gap. Are there thousands of hours between early September and November 16th?, no but it sure felt like it.  Steve worked endlessly to make our space just perfect for production, sales, office and storage.  Without him we would be many dollars in the hole or just not at 130 Ware St.  George, Susan’s husband spent many an hour labeling soaps, preparing candle glass for production, schlepping endlessly for us including our initial move into the building.  These two guys have been generous and kind to a fault completely supporting the dreams of their women-folk.  Maria did the final candle production with Steve on Friday.

So yesterday Verdae opened the doors to a new life and Athens responded resoundingly.  Mary Kurtz was our first customer who arrived just before ten because she wanted to be sure that we had at least one customer first thing.  In gratitude to her and just for fun, we gave Mary a $10 credit for being our first customer in our new space!  Our second customer was also named Mary, Byrne that is, who shared with me that she always associates Verdae with the Shepherd Center in Atlanta where her daughter Grace was a patient.  I had sent some products via Susan to Shepherd for Grace.  I was already starting to feel overwhelmed by the love of the Athens community and it wasn’t even fifteen minutes into our first day.

For three hours folks streamed in non-stop.  We had a line at the check out where the lovely Liz  and Anna  were  charming everyone with their contagious smiles and general gracefulness.  Sometime in the mid morning I was mindlessly wrapping beautiful felted soaps from Jennif Chandler and chatting with my friend Alex.  I was mid sentence when I happened to look toward the door just to see who was entering the store.  I have never been more shocked in my entire life, really.  There stood my childhood friend Lynn Rinck who had driven nine hours from Cincinnati (hitting Atlanta at 4 pm on Friday…ugh) to surprise me and share in my excitement of Verdae’s re-opening.  I wish I could have seen my own face.  I actually felt faint and it makes me tear up all over again just remembering how happy she made me yesterday.

Later in the middle of the day as the numbers eased during the Georgia/Auburn game our good friends Leila, Laurie and Chan brought mounds of food for us from Cali n Titos.  We were all hungry and chowed down in a rather unrefined way, happy to have food and time to eat it.  It was only a lull, as later on more folks came and went and bought our wares.  We were lucky to have Elise come to our rescue with our Habitat cash register; she effortlessly figured out how to program that darn machine to make our life easier.

So many gifts of love, so much kindness and generosity.  It’s hard to grasp the magnitude of what happened yesterday, all that led up to it, all the folks who were involved in making it happen.  Last night as I drove home, Lynn was following close behind in her car.  (I’m pretty sure she ran a stop sign,  as she coupled to my car so as not to lose her way in the dark!) The moon was full and dancing in and out of the clouds as the last apricot light of sunset was closing down.  For what seems like the millionth time I asked myself: “how did this happen”, and then smiled and allowed the feeling of grace to inhabit me peacefully.

Thank you to my big Bourgeois family who sent flowers, emails, text messages, facebook messages, voicemails that went unanswered.  Thank you to my Athens family who have been instrumental in supporting this dream of mine over all these years.  Thank you to my customers who faithfully showed up in droves yesterday to affirm that what we’re doing is something that the Athens community appreciates. Thank you to my partners who have been instrumental in bringing Verdae back to life and Thank you to my husband who has turned himself inside out for me.

  I just don’t know how to say thank you enough.  My heart this morning is full,  my eyes are teary, the excitement from yesterday is overwhelming still today.