Tibetan Bazaar

Some days are dust and some days are diamonds.

Today fell into the diamond category, the temperature is starting to inch upwards to normal, and we went to the annual Tibetan Bazaar, had a wonderful visit with Tsunami and frittered the rest of the day away doing a pleasant nothing.

I can’t remember how long we have been going to the bazaar, we have missed a few over the years, but it is always an interesting visit. There is a draw for a door prize, but I guess I didn’t win since it is getting late and I haven’t heard from them. I didn’t even to bother looking at the prizes, because I’ve learned over the years that I don’t need to get my hopes up only to be disappointed once again. Yes, I know that’s a negative attitude and sending out those kind of vibes into the world isn’t a smart thing to do. Oh well…

They hold the bazaar in the Westgate Community Centre and a fairly largish room is filled with booths selling mostly hand crafted clothing, scarves, hats and gloves and coin purses. I like the hand carved items that generally have significance to their belief system. There are singing bowls, prayer wheels, posters with mandalas and an assortment of other more esoteric paraphernalia that I don’t know the name of or the uses for. I wish I could have flown my friends John and Karen out for a visit; they would be able to explain most of the things there. It’s nice having smart friends. They aren’t smart enough not to have me as a friend, but they are pretty smart.

I love talking to the people who are sitting on the other side of the table and getting a small glimpse into their lives. I have been on that side of a craft booth and it can be exhilarating and depressing within minutes. There is nothing worse than someone that picks something up you spent hours on and says to the person they are with “I could do this for a dollars worth of wool and a knitting needle!” They never will of course because it is far easier to talk than to do. People like me were a pain in the ass too. I will talk to them and say how wonderful everything is and then just keep walking without buying anything. My only excuse is that I am cheap, oh and I could do that with a dollars worth of wool and a knitting needle.

You will never make enough money to live on by doing crafts. You will develop a large helping of self worth and confidence in your abilities. A retired guy like me could supplement his income and that would be tax free money too. I keep telling myself that I will start to sell some of the things I can make, but when you get right down to it, I don’t really want to. I think I want to, but here I am writing a blog when I could be doing a carving to sell on Etsy.

I hope that all of the people who manned the booths today made enough money to pay for the food they ate and enough to keep them creating those wonderful items which were on the tables. I will see them all next year…