Responding to an Inner Voice

I heard what it said, but it took me a long time to figure out what it meant

My first misunderstanding of the message was that I needed to do “something else.” I thought that these hand-embroidered pillow coverings and quilts would have more appeal than they did. [All photos by the author.]

In 1991, I moved with my family from San Francisco to Palo Alto. I had already been teaching for 22 years in San Francisco public schools and was going to commute to San Francisco as a means of retaining my tenure in the district and my contributions to the same retirement system with which I had been associated since 1969.

Shortly after the move to Palo Alto, I had a vague feeling, the likes of which I had never experienced before, that I needed to be doing “something else” in addition to my teaching.

The only problem was that I didn’t know what that “something else” was.

A couple of missteps in trying to find out what it was

During my first visit to Thailand in 1991, I encountered a British gentleman selling embroidered pillows and quilts at the night market in Chiang Mai. He was married to a local woman with whom he embarked on this line of work.

I was so taken by the craftsmanship of the items that I approached him with the idea of buying them wholesale so that I could place them into gift and housewares shops in the Bay Area. He willingly agreed.