05 Stories | Kate

05 Stories | Kate, Acrylic on Chipboard, 44 x 55”h, (c) Heidi Jeub

When we started getting to know each other, a few years ago, I sensed some sarcasm in her voice, and thanks to the social media, found her to be a goofy middle child, between two boys. 

She was raised on the farm, where the daily chores made her work even harder as a student, so she didn’t have to do the chores post-high school graduation. She admitted that she was lazy and the farm expected too much of her. So, therefore, you must do well in school, so you’re expected to do something else. 

The origin of our relationship was at a committee meeting, she being the creative in charge of the promo materials for a project. Learning of the creatives in my small town of moonlighting gig work, is a personal obsession of mine. I need to find my people, the creative ones… those who make something out of seemingly nothing. She was one of them. 

 Her humor intertwined with mine as we conversed about the things we had yet to discover about each other. This allowed us to talk about random things, like religion, politics, and crazy stories of backwoods crime, crack house renovation, and cemetery seances. Do you ever tell stories that get better when your audience helps you build it? That was what happened here. 

Our meandering chat made me miss dinner parties, beers with friends, and running into folks at random places in town. This conversation would not have happened if we just based our views of each other on the committee meetings and Robert’s Rules. Now, we just sat and explored the moment at hand. The short hello that happens in normal life, before what we are experiencing now, would never have evolved to this type of laughter and connection. We now can check in, because time is precious, and we are letting folks slip by because we were too busy, too rigid, too stuck in our own lives.