Sometimes the magic works...

So, I had this idea.

Before Palm Springs, before Sarasota, I spent three years on the road, most of the time in Asia. I fell in love with so much of Asian culture. Again and again, in China, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, I was seduced by the home furnishings I saw in markets there – fabrics, lacquerware, decorative arts, and furniture. I saw hand-made, expertly-crafted, beautiful objects that would enhance any home (and brought home what I could given my gypsy status). Everywhere I saw things that I truly believed would sell in the US, especially the west coast.

When I was teaching in Chiang Mai Thailand, I had the opportunity to explore the woodcraft villages near where I was teaching. There, local craftsman produce a range of items ranging from back scratchers to dining tables. The styles range from traditional Thai, to sleek contemporary. There is also a huge inventory of Chinese antiques that entered the country fleeing the onslaught of the Three Gorges Damn.

Made in Phuket, Thailand

When I returned to the States in 2009, I parked my memories of the markets of Asia on my hard drive. I decorated my quarters with my souvenirs, and worked on building a post-travel, post-retirement life in Sarasota Florida, an environment that was unfamiliar to me. I have written enough about that chapter for now, but when it became clear that I would be leaving Sarasota and returning to California, I revisited those Asian markets in my memory bank and was captured by the idea of starting a business importing the things I fell in love with on my travels.

I won't bore you with the iterations and mash-ups the idea went through. Looking back, I think I was envisioning  a desert cities Gumps, and I truly believed I could find a sustainable niche in the California marketplace that would provide a modest income, pay for my travel back and forth to the countries I still carry in my consciousness, and introduce hand-crafted things of beauty to the American home (well, for the higher end American homes).

After much winnowing and some research, after socializing the idea to as wide an audience as I felt I could impose upon with my pitch, I refined the idea to hand-crafted, contemporary, Asian furnishings. Pieces that would look understatedly fabulous in the mid-century and contemporary manses of the Coachella Valley. Sleek contemporary designs executed in teak, rosewood, rattan, hibiscus grass, and stainless steel. Designs that echo Russell Wright, the Knoll catalog, with a soupçon  of Michael Graves. Craftsmanship is of the highest-quality. I was energized.

Hand-crafted, Asian, Contemporary

My soul-buddy, Jot, came up with a name. I designed a logo. I identified possible locations for a to-the-trade warehouse store in the right area, I gathered images for presentations, even contacted a few of the craftsmen (who now have a web presence)  to find out if they had distribution in North America.

Fiery clouds and lots of smoke,
a most unusual Palm Springs sunset

And then,  I did the business plan. It was an onerous task. I downloaded a template from the web, wrote mission statements and marketing strategies. I revisited my corporate communicator mode. I booked an appointment with a consultant from SCORE, the organization of retired business professionals affiliated with SBA. The consultant, a woman smack-dab in the middle of my target demographic, asked tough questions, shared valuable insights, and moved from skepticism to cautious enthusiasm during the course of our meeting. She assigned me a task: do a 12-month cost/income projection, something I knew I needed to do but had been putting off.

The organic rubber met the road. The That fighting cocks came home to roost. The proof wasn't in the pudding. The idea did not hold up financially. At the end of the first year, if everything went in my favor, it might pay expenses but there would be no surplus to provide additional income for personnel, or me, or pay back an investor (which I knew I needed). Not what I had in mind. Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. Perhaps, in a parallel universe, I am preparing for the opening. Not important.

The move to Palm Springs still feels right. I am happy to be back in California among fruit and nuts. I am curious about what's in store for me personally and for our troubled species. I'll probably continue to blog about it.

Our Town: Preface

The San Jacinto Mountains from my balcony.

Those of you who have followed my wanderings know that I recently moved to Palm Springs after visiting here twice in the last year. Even though I had heard about 'other the desert cities' I really didn't know much about any of them except for names and decades old short visits. I knew Palm Springs only a little better.

I've been here two months now. I have come to realize, much to my surprise and so far my delight, the Coachella Valley is a rich and varied landscape. Wonderland. Oz. Candyland.  Lost boys. munchicans, amazons, and more queens and fairy princesses than you can count. And that's just Palm Springs.

It's called a cenotaph. I know why the last
three names appear on the stone,
but the others?

I'm told the cathedral in Cathedral City next door is a reference to the San Jacinto mountains. There's no cathedral, but there's Trader Joe's and Target and it's only 10 minutes from where I live on the edge of Warm Sands (subject of future posts). It has a lot of good local restaurants and uni-culture and box stores. Long-time locals call it Cat City. Depending on who you ask it's either short for cathedral or an acknowledgement of its reputation as a den of iniquity in the 19th century, and as a haven for speakeasies in the 1920s. Several entertainment celebrities are buried in two cemeteries here.

Rancho Mirage, the next town East on Palm Canyon Drive, would feel familiar to people who have lived or visited the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles. Upper middle-class strip and outdoor malls. There's more to it than that, but I haven't done much in those parts yet. There's a Cheesecake Factory. I've actually eaten there twice. Those of you who know my history know that I enjoyed a special time there in a past life and lived to not write about it.

White Water Preserve. an honest-to-god oasis
twenty minutes from downtown.

The desert city that intrigues me the most, aside from Palm Springs, is Indian Wells. Have you ever driven down an avenue in a strange city and known instantly you are in "that" part of town? River Oaks in Houston, Bronxville NY, Sea Cliff in San Francisco.

No stores, no advertising, no mac-mansions – driving through Indian Wells on route 111 all you really see are walls and manicured palm trees punctuated by conspicuously understated gated entrances. The road is noticeably better-paved, the trees better tended, the walls pristine and luxuriantly planted. Bill Gates has a place here and "lots of other famous people," or so I'm told. I doubt I'll be attending many dinners there.

★★★

It's taken me a week to get this much down in a post. I've been wrestling with a decision and haven't been inspired to do much blogging. It's little more than a Trip Advisor review. I'll try to do better in future posts. I may also be inspired to write more about the decision.

The windmills of my mind have been working
overtime lately

For now, I'll share that, like most people who have reached the so-called retirement years, I've been looking for a hook for this next act. I'm sixty-seven now. I haven't found the idiot's guide to subsistance retirement living yet, so I'm trying to get in touch with what I want to manifest for this next stage. I've been putting a fair amount of energy into trying to manifest an idea I had for an import business. Unfortunately, the numbers just don't add up. So, unless deus ex machinas with a direct order and a check, I have decided it's time to explore other possibilities.

The photos included have only peripheral relationship to the text.