being at home

August Moon Rise has been a lot of places.

I’ve spent weekends at markets. I’ve been on shelves in other people’s shops. I’ve shown up on Instagram almost every day for years.

And I’m grateful for all of those places.

But somewhere along the way, I made a home for August Moon Rise.

I don’t think I really noticed that was what I was doing.

I built a website because a business needs a website. I made a Journal because I wanted somewhere for the longer thoughts to live. I filled it with photographs and products and things I cared about.

And lately, when I look at it, it feels different.

I feel settled.

This is where I live.

And when I feel settled somewhere, my instinct isn’t to close the door.

It’s to have people over.

The places we meet

I’ve been thinking about the different places a business inhabits.

Not only what they cost or what they produce, although those things matter.

I’ve been thinking about the relationships we have in those places.

Social media is where we run into each other.

I don’t own Instagram.

Neither do you.

We are both occupying someone else’s space, under someone else’s rules, and those rules can change without either of us having much say in the matter.

But I like meeting you there.

I like putting a thought into the world and seeing what comes back. I like when someone who has never commented before suddenly says, I’ve been thinking about this too.

I like that we can keep casually running into each other.

Not every relationship needs to begin with an invitation.

Sometimes you just keep seeing the same person around town until one day you realize you know each other.

There is something lovely about that.

The community picnic

Markets feel different.

A market is a little like deciding to have a community picnic.

A group of businesses agrees to show up in the same place at the same time.

We pack our things.

You make plans to come.

And for a few hours, we create something that didn’t exist before everyone arrived.

Obviously, I am there to sell things.

Markets are part of my business, and pretending the economics don’t matter would be ridiculous.

But I don’t think economics explain the whole value of being there.

Markets are where I get to meet you.

Actually meet you.

You tell me which scent you always come back for. You bring me the vessel you bought three years ago. You tell me you read something I wrote. You introduce me to someone you brought with you.

Sometimes you buy something.

Sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes we just talk.

And then, at the end of the night, we all pack everything away.

The tables disappear.

The tents come down.

The parking lot becomes a parking lot again.

The picnic is over.

I go home.

Being invited into someone else’s space

Stockists are different again.

Someone has built a business of their own and decided to make room for my work inside it.

I’ve been thinking about these relationships a lot recently.

I used to think being stocked was mostly about being chosen.

Someone wanted my candles in their shop.

Wonderful.

I’ve come to understand that the better question is what we are choosing to do together.

A good stockist relationship gives both businesses something they couldn’t create quite as easily alone.

They introduce August Moon Rise to people who already trust them.

I give them something they believe belongs in the environment they’ve created.

There is investment on both sides.

There is risk on both sides.

There should be value on both sides.

And when that happens, being invited into someone else’s space is a privilege.

I don’t need it to become my home.

It already belongs to someone else.

I’m happy to be there.

The people I invite over

Then there is the mailing list.

This one might be the strangest relationship of all.

At some point you gave me your email address and essentially said:

You can come find me.

That is a remarkable amount of permission to give a business.

And businesses can become very enthusiastic about that permission.

SIGN UP.

SUBSCRIBE.

DON’T MISS OUT.

Then, once we have successfully acquired your email address, we apparently need to speak to you constantly.

I’ve never been particularly good at that.

For a long time, most of my emails have had a specific reason attached to them.

A sale.

A code.

Something happening.

Essentially: I’m having a get-together. Would you like to come?

There will still be those invitations.

But I’ve started thinking that if the only time I invite you over is when I would like you to spend money, I’m not being a particularly interesting host.

Sometimes I can just say:

I was thinking about you.

I wrote something I thought you might like.

Come over.

Home

Which brings me back to the website.

This is mine.

I pay for it, certainly, but that isn’t what makes it feel like home.

It feels like home because I recognize myself in it.

The photography.

The products.

The Journal.

The things I’ve chosen to keep.

The things I’ve changed my mind about.

The ideas I’ve spent time developing.

The evidence of where August Moon Rise has been and what it is becoming.

I decide what belongs here.

I can write something today and leave it here for years.

I can make something because I think it is beautiful without wondering whether an algorithm will understand it.

I can take 2,000 words to finish a thought.

I can change something when it no longer feels right.

I can rearrange the furniture.

I can make myself at home.

But the funny thing about finally feeling at home is that I don’t particularly want to sit here by myself.

I want you to come over.

And I mean that quite literally in the way I understand hospitality.

I am the person who vacuums the pet hair every day in anticipation of someone dropping by unannounced.

There is tea.

There are snacks.

You do not need to call first.

I like company.

I want my website to feel the same way.

You don’t need to come here because you need a candle.

You don’t actually need a reason at all.

There should be things to look at.

Things to read.

Something new on the table occasionally.

Something you remember from the last time you were here.

I want to put care into this place because it belongs to me.

But I also want to put care into it because you’re coming.

Those are not competing ideas.

I don’t think hospitality means making your home as neutral as possible so everyone who enters it will approve.

Quite the opposite.

The homes I love being in are unmistakably inhabited.

You know something about the person who lives there.

There are books on the shelves they actually read.

Art they chose because they loved it.

Objects with stories.

Evidence of a life.

Being welcoming doesn’t require removing yourself from the room.

It means making room for someone else in it.

I think the same is true here.

I want August Moon Rise to become more specific, not less.

I want this space to contain more of the things I find interesting.

More complete thoughts.

More beautiful photographs.

More evidence of the life and ideas behind the things I make.

And I want to think about you while I’m doing it.

Not an audience.

Not traffic.

Not a conversion.

You.

The person who came by.

There’s a spot at the table

I don’t want to leave any of the other places behind.

I still want to run into you on Instagram.

I still want to go to the community picnic.

I still want August Moon Rise to be invited into other people’s spaces when the relationship makes sense.

I’ll still send invitations when we’re having something special.

They are different relationships.

And I value them for different reasons.

But I’ve finally made a home for myself.

It feels settled.

It feels like somewhere I can keep becoming without having to pack everything up at the end of the night.

And I know where I go at the end of the day.

Home.

The tea is on.

I’ve vacuumed the pet hair.

Come over.

There’s always a spot at the table for you.