Trina Machacek: Creating is in the eye of the creator

When was the last time you walked the aisles of a craft store? Seeing the little bags of beads and eyes that spin in little plastic bubbles. The embroidery threads and soft, softer, softest yarns in full rainbow colors. The put-together ships in a bottle, or snap-together cars that get better paint jobs than my Chevy.

Do you “do crafts”? Plan, look, plan some more then buy six of everything to make that little bird on a stiff wire that bobbles its head as it slides down to the block of wood it is perched on? Or do you go to craft stores and bazaars and buy the already made wonderful crafts that the crafty people out there in craft land, craft for us craft buyers?

Maybe you, and you know who you are, walk the bazaars, making mental notes and then run home and make what you just saw that some other crafter has crafted and is trying to sell. Yes, we know there are the “PFFFFT, I can do that myself” crafters. That is the way of the world.

I read a story once of a couple that after years of no vacations they found themselves on the white sand beach of some tropical island lounging in loungers, slathered with oil. Like bright white chickens about to be put into the fryer! Well, there’s a unique visual. Moving on.

The couple is coming to the end of the magical trip, and they begin to talk of how wonderful it would be to live on this piece of heaven on earth. The man says he saw a guy sitting on the beach, painting the shells of turtles and selling them. Yes, he bought one. The woman says she could paint turtle shells. The man comes back with, “why don’t we just stay and start painting turtle shells.” The woman agrees and they sit back and fry a bit more.

As they sit, they each form what life would be like to live beachside, painting turtle shells and creating their utopia. Then the real world starts to sneak into their thoughts. The man remarks that they would have to sell so many turtle shells each day to pay for all the comforts they have at home. The woman chimes in that in the 10 days they have been there she didn’t see any place she would like to live, like the home she has back home.

And she mentioned that she has no idea where she would go to get turtle shells. And do people just dispatch turtles for their shells? How can people catch and then just, uh, kill the poor turtles? She shook her head to get the ugly thought of turtle guts out of her mind.

In the end the couple picked up their towels, tried to wipe the sticky sand off their oiled bodies and went back to the 4-star hotel they had been fantasy living in for the past 10 days. Soon they were back in suburbia working, playing and dreaming of the next beach they would be on.

If you haven’t done something like that, or near that on a vacation, you need to call a travel agent and flit away. Like wanting to play Goofy at Disneyland. You could do it but it’s really just another job. That’s sometimes how, when you decide to make, create, grow, or become something you’ll find a painted turtle shell filled with dust and a note pad, a pencil, a half roll of lifesavers on your coffee table in your house. Poor turtle.

The moral is that we can all see ourselves doing something we see someone else doing. The grass is greener… That, “I can do it better,” no matter what “it” is. I have wanted to make a quilt for maybe 30 years. I even started buying material. Will I ever make a quilt? Not unless you count the Levi blankets I sew for friends to take on picnics.

There is a nursery on a highway that I drive by when I drive to Reno. It started long ago with a woman selling seedlings by the side of the road. Then she put up a stand and sold eggs too. The stand became a small building.

The summer months of selling became spring months and fall months. Trees were added to sell. Soon lawn and garden gnomes and do dads. Fall gave way to Christmas trees and snow blowers and ice melter. Until…

Last time I went by there was a for sale sign up with “Dreaming of living on the beach” scrawled across the bottom. I wonder. Will they be painting turtle shells?

Trina Machacek lives in Diamond Valley north of Eureka. Email itybytrina@yahoo.com.