This past week I traveled to a fashion trade show for our business. The fall look, if you are wondering, is a floppy ’70s hippie-chick hat and as many layers as you can wear without suffocating.
I traveled, worked and socialized with three young women who I hope to be like when I grow up.
No. 1: A 26-year-old who knows more about her credit score than I will ever know about mine. My credit score is controlled by large companies and kept a mystery from me until I need it, and then it’s never high enough.
No. 2: A 34-year-old whose entrepreneurial spirit has taken her across the country and back several times to manage restaurants, private estates and other people’s small children. She has the work ethic of a Midwestern farmer.
No. 3: A 27-year-old who recently spent two years in the Peace Corps in the African country of Benin and is now working two jobs while fighting off bedbugs in Brooklyn, New York. She shared stories about her time in the Peace Corps and her battle with bedbugs with humility and hilarity.
I heard no whining from these three women, which kept my own whining in check. (Standing in a booth all day for three days is exhausting.)
Over dinner, after a long day of hawking our wares, we shared stories as if we were contemporaries. We were millennials, Gen Xers and boomers mixing it up over a good burger and a glass of beer.
I was convinced, after spending time with these determined women, that our future is in good hands. Instead of ending the night feeling worn out, I felt inspired.
The traits they share, in my opinion, are their ability to problem solve and to listen.
I learned that they all had been given responsibility at a young age. One worked at a Maine farmstand, another cleaned hotel rooms at her grandfather’s hotel for $5 per room and a third was a parks and recreation basketball referee.
After years of school and other more praiseworthy experiences, they had all discovered the humor in those first jobs and the value of rubbing two nickels together in order to make a quarter.
These three grown women remind me of five much younger women in my neighborhood – “The Army of Smalls,” as I call them.
The Army of Smalls is a group of five girls under the age of 10 who have claimed the borders of our property lines and open spaces as their own. They roam through a four-house zone that includes a swing set in one yard, a fairy path in another and a large porch at the last.
They set up stands at the ends of driveways to sell their wares. Products include: handcrafted gladiator shoes made from string and tied on your feet while you wait. Couture skirts made from yarn and beads, custom-beaded with your name if you are willing to wait three to four weeks. And a yo-yo made from balled-up masking tape and string. Instead of a recoiling string action, you make the yo-yo work by bouncing the wad of masking tape up and down, silly.
The Army of Smalls’ uniform consists of, but is not limited to, baseball hats turned backward, horn-rimmed glasses, scarves tied around acres of waist-length hair, miniature dresses passed down from one sister to the next, creating a maxi-look out of a midi-look, and sneakers for faster travel between houses.
In the same way that I felt comfortable working and socializing with the three women in their 20s and 30s, I would also plop down anywhere, anytime at the first invitation from The Army of Smalls. We would talk, share stories and maybe make friendship bracelets.
I am drawn to these millennials and Gen Xers for their sense of adventure and respect for each other. I will continue to buy their wares, give them jobs, listen to their stories and honor their experiences.
And when The Army of Smalls grows up, I will toast their success and listen and share stories about when we were young.
Jolene McGowan lives and works in Portland with her husband, daughter and dog and has no plans to leave, ever. She can be contacted at:
respondtoportcitypost@gmail.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
