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.

Once I got home and started making the rounds of the shops, I found that it was difficult to get them placed, even on consignment, and the process was much more time-consuming than I had ever imagined it would be.

After trying this for a year or so, I ultimately abandoned the whole idea. I was only able to divest myself of the merchandise by giving it as gifts during the ensuing few years.

Next up was an attempt at the vending machine business. Now that I was living in suburbia and had a car, I thought it would be rather easy to stock up on soda, candy, and snacks at Costco and then make weekly runs to fill machines and collect my money.

It didn’t work out that way. Sales were quite low. All the running around to do the shopping, check on stock, and fill vending machines was a colossal waste of time, as well as money, as I was on the hook for having purchased those machines.