Give and Receive

Part of the process of starting our own business has been to visit clients from the past few years to collect photographs of Stone’s work for his personal portfolio.

Last weekend my parents were visiting and we were able to go on a “date” to take pictures and meet with past clients while they spent time with the boys. This time was very valuable because not only was it well needed one-on-one time for us as a couple, but bringing two rowdy boys to a job site wasn’t exactly the professional vibe we wanted to impart.

There was one woman who could not be home and so she left a message telling us to stop by anyways and that she left us a bouquet of flowers for us in the backyard.

It felt a little Secret Garden-esque as we stepped under the arbor to enter her backyard and Stone shared the story of the wall and the woman. She is middle-aged, lives alone and is a small business owner with many friends in town. She wanted to draw the curve of a garden wall around the perimeter of her small, hidden downtown yard and she wanted to build it with him. He taught her how to use a brick hammer and they worked side by side. It was her wall. He said he could have finished it faster without her, but it was such a nice experience he wouldn’t change anything and now he considers her a valuable ally in our community. I remember now that at the end of the job he stopped by and presented her with her own brick hammer now that she was an “official” stonemason.

She had left a gorgeous bouquet of handpicked flowers on her garden table and he took them as we walked away. I was struck by the image: this strong, tough man holding a bouquet of blooms as he walked away from a job site that required tools, a truck and sweat. He was satisfied and I thought about how her money had paid for some of our bills or perhaps covered a few trips to the co-op or maybe gone towards our mortgage. It felt like a valuable exchange all around.

It is a world in which we give and receive. You don’t give to receive and sometimes the act may not be directly reciprocal, but somehow there is a balance so that we give what we have and what we can and we receive what we need and when we need it. On this day it was a bouquet of flowers to grace our afternoon date and later our kitchen table as we prepare to make room for more love in our family.

This post is part of FIMBY’s Friday’s Flowers Series. Join in the fun and make new friends.

Tagged as: Community, photo friday, work