Bracelet Week

My beloved Mom,

I haven't counted how many little envelopes with bracelets I packed in the course of this week. The dining room has become a crowded, chaotic, mailing center. I believe 500-600 bracelets left by mail this week. I am soooo tired, every night I tried to keep track of emails, orders, transfers, packaging, wrapping, colors. I thought having something in a magazine like Instyle and receiving thousands of orders was an urban legend. But it isn't. Not a thousand orders though, but I wouldn't haven been able to handle more than I received anyway. Orders finally slowed down Thursday and I am relieved and sad... since yesterday the crushing pain is back.

Tonie constantly tries to get her hands on anything. Or she gets mad because she is bored crawling under the table not being able to make a mess with her little tiny octopussy fingers. If she is suddenly very quiet... she probably has found something she can unpack. Every DVD of Season 5 and six of "Friends" has been removed from its case. Once she has emptied every case she goes looking for my handbag. Ah, the wallet. And all the receits have to go and the change goes into my boots.

If you were alive I knew you'd been here every day, helping me with something, anything, packing or doing a post office run, buying envelopes and stamps, labeling orders, sorting emails. Like you did for me when we prepared my exhibition in the studio, hanging everything, preparing the bar and the music, hoovering the floor the last minute or helping me finish 400 tiny felt-loveletter-clutches. The entire process made me miss you even more and realize how much I counted on you as my emergency assistant-partner. At the same time I didn't miss you at all this week, because it felt as if you were there. As if you were right by my side and we were doing all this together.