I had the best of intentions: On day one I was to look at the art; on day two, look at the shops, decide what items I want to purchase and weed out what I could not afford, and on the third day make my purchases. All might have gone as planned except we ended up tweaking our strategy a little: We decided that instead of viewing all the art at once (It really was quite overwhelming – actually exhausting - and we felt we couldn’t do them all justice) we would go back and forth between the shopping booths and the art. Admire the art for a couple of hours, look at the booths for a couple of hours…take a break and eat, then do it again. Still, it was working; I didn’t buy anything on the first day, and I only bought one item on the second day. I had seen most, but not all of the shopping booths by the end of the second day, and I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to buy from what I had seen, so I felt safe on the third day.
Little did I know that I was to experience a new phenomena – one that I will call, the big finale. On that third day, after I had coolly made my planned purchases, I discovered the Vogue booth, with hundreds of beautiful, colorful batik fabrics for half of what they normally go for! I felt I would have been a fool to resist buying them, even though I had spent my allotment already. “Okay,” I told myself, “You’ve spent your sum, but this really is a bargain! Besides, I know I will use these fabrics!” So I went ahead and bought them. Later, we came across a booth we had missed with some of the most interesting designs I had seen in quite some time. People were in a fabric frenzy in there– flipping through the stacks like they were dealing cards…even grabbing fabric from each other, and I knew that if I didn’t buy some of it, it would be gone, so, weakened as I was from allowing myself to fall off the fabric wagon, I got that, too. And that was it – I had taken my finger out of the dike and the material sprang forth.
The next day was Saturday, and we only had a few hours at the show before we had to leave. We still hadn’t seen all the art, so we planned on viewing, and then leaving. But then I got inspired by some of the pieces I had seen, and we still had two hours, so I decided I wanted to look for specific colors, and suddenly we passed by the hand-dyes I am such a sucker for, and the colors were so rich, and I was leaving soon, so I bought some of them, and then I (stupidly) visited the Vogue booth again with their darn half-priced fabrics - and in the exact colors I was looking for, too…I ended up spending twice the amount I had planned. I even had to go to the ATM to get more cash for food and incidentals.
I’m so ashamed!**
I’m also a little disappointed in myself because I did not remain entirely present and aware, which was my spiritual goal. I know that I didn’t need to buy all I did; I already have enough for many future projects, darn it, but once the end was near, that part of me that is pure emotion took over and the result was, well, fabric gluttony. I didn’t want to gain any fabric weight this year, but I piled the pounds on at the end. Damn.
My only consolation is that I already have ideas and designs in mind for every purchase that I made - does that make it all better? Probably not, but it makes me feel better, anyway.
So for this year, I must give myself a failing grade (A, for avarice), but next year, I’m still striving for a Z (for Zen!)
**Not really, because I really am so excited and inspired by the stuff I got, but I should be - really!
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