Everyone has a Story

One of my favourite things about markets is meeting the other stall holders.

Yes, it's lovely attending with friends, there is comfort in familiar faces, shared coffees and laughter as you set up your tables in the early morning. But secretly, I also love finding myself beside people I don't know.

What is their story, how did it all begin?

Was it a hobby that slowly grew into something more? A skill passed down through generations? An unexpected turn in life that led them here?

I've realised this isn't really a new thing to know these things,  I've always loved seeing snipets of other people's worlds.

One of my favourite things to do on a Sunday was to buy the Sunday paper, sitting with a coffee I would pull out the inner magazine, because inside that small little magazine in the middle of the paper was an article that took you inside someone's home. The stories tucked between glossy pages,  not perfect homes, not extraordinary lives, but a glimpse into how someone else lived.

Books stacked on a side table, the kitchen table worn smooth from years of family meals, the garden outside the window, the collections gathered over decades.  

And you'd close the page thinking,

How lovely that somebody lives like that.

Perhaps that's what I love about markets too.  For a few hours, people become more than the thing they're selling, you get a glimpse into their lives.

The woman selling pottery becomes the person who learnt to throw clay after her children grew up.

The beekeeper becomes the person who fell in love with bees.

The artist becomes the person who almost gave up.

The candle maker becomes someone who has been quietly trying to find her way. 

And it makes you wonder?

I sometimes wonder how often we get each other's stories wrong. The polished website and social media means confidence.  The beautiful market display means it all came easily or that quiet person must be snobby.

But perhaps, more often than not, people have simply been trying to find their way.

I know I have.

This version of Beckah isn't really new, in many ways, it's what I wanted it to be all along, I just didn't quite know how to get there.

The older I get, the more I admire bravery.  Not the loud kind, the quieter kind.  The person who signs up for the market not knowing anyone, the people who learn a new skill in the middle of life, those who change direction. 

The people who finally say, "This matters to me."

Maybe that's why I secretly love these conversations with strangers, because every market table represents a small act of courage.   Someone packed the car before dawn, unfolded a trestle table, put their work out into the world and hoped another person might understand it.

I've noticed I almost always come home with something from those kinds of markets too. Not because I set out to shop, but because somewhere between asking how someone got started and hearing the winding path that brought them there, the object becomes more than an object.  It becomes a reminder of a conversation, a small piece of another person's world.  I arrive at markets hoping people might connect with the things I've made.  I leave carrying little pieces of other people's worlds with me.

Is that, what draws us to handmade in the first place? Not perfection, not polished photographs. But a quiet hope that a little piece of another person's world has found its way into our own.

Perhaps that's why I've always loved those glimpses into other people's lives. The homes tucked inside Sunday magazines. The conversations beside market tables. The ordinary stories we so often overlook.

How lovely that somebody lives like that.