I learned early in life we don't always get what we want, when we want it. My parents enforced that one pretty well.
When other kids got the most popular toy of the season that didn't happen in my household. In fact, I don't think my folks ever asked me what I'd like for a birthday. Did they know better/was that teaching me some life lesson? When other kids got a car in high school, I was lucky to even be allowed to use my Mom's. Can't you hear the violins playing?
So here comes the story of denying myself something I wanted on a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico when I was completing my junior year in college. In this quiet provincial pueblo lived a potter who was known as Doña Rosa. She looked ancient already but she was a local treasure as she polished her pots made from the black earthen clay. I watched in awe as she did her craft. Oh, how I wanted one of her pieces but knew it wasn't in my budget and even if I splurged, that pottery could break before I even returned home... I was used to not getting what I wanted.
Fast forward almost 50 years years and I am in a consignment store in a suburb of Atlanta and there in the pottery section sits a rustic black pot. It is from Oaxaca without a doubt but Doña Rosa had passed in 1980. She had had many students throughout the years so I looked on the bottom for a signature and in the dimly lit space it looked like it said Doña Clara. Disappointed, sure, but I didn't care because it was a Oaxacan piece of pottery and it had been sitting there for 6 months and the marked price would be discounted 10% per month. It was going home with me and I would hand carry it on the plane to add to my Native American shelf.
Upon returning home I unwrapped it, cleaned it up to place in its new home...
As I flipped it over etched on its bottom was a scrawl which read:
Doña Rosa Oaxaca, Mexico.
What is that old saying, "all good things come to those who wait?"
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