My mom turned 60 at the beginning of this month.
We couldn't celebrate on Saturday because she was in town, working on plans for the building she bought on Main Street that she's turning into a coffee shop.
So she called in a young carpenter to make her a coffee bar and befriended him like he was one of the family, because he did an outstanding job and took special care in the work he did on the back room she renovated in the clothing store she runs next door.
So now she's trying to find him a girlfriend.
Because when my mom believes in something, she doesn't give up.
ADVERTISEMENT
Lord help you if you're the someone or something she believes in. She'll give you the shirt off her back, a job when there's no openings or the last brownie in the pile on her kitchen counter.
And so here she is learning about the coffee business when most women her age are thinking about retiring and moving to Florida.
When I ask my mom about this elusive retirement, she says, "Well what would I do? I can't just hang around here making brownies all day. I don't have any hobbies."
So she's going to hang around Main Street Watford City to make coffee and help keep this small town dressing well. If you added a dance studio and a wine bar in the back, you would have all of my mom's favorite things in one place.
And while she might not crochet baby beanies or take photos of wildflowers, the "no hobby" thing isn't true at all. She just seems to have turned her love for people and shopping into a business. Come to think of it, after witnessing her energy and enthusiasm for new challenges, I wouldn't be surprised if on her 61st birthday she added that wine bar after all.
As it turns out, the woman's always had an entrepreneurial and creative mind, one that she's been honing since opening a day care/dance class business in her backyard when she was in fifth grade.
I doubt that fifth-grade ballerina would have guessed she would grow up to marry a cowboy and wind up raising kids on a ranch 30 miles from the nearest grocery store. I mean, when she moved out here she didn't even know how to drive on a hill.
But she did it. And while ranching wasn't in her wheelhouse, she brought her wheelhouse to town teaching aerobics and dance class. And then, when she took a full-time job, she taught those classes in the evenings.
ADVERTISEMENT
Because at that time, there wasn't a plethora of jobs to choose from in small-town Watford City, so my mom made her way, eventually landing a career she held for years working from a home office and traveling across the state, until about three years ago when a change in the company inspired her to look for a change in herself.
And the clothing store on Main Street was up for sale, so she took the leap and put her entrepreneurial spirit to use again, finding her way back to her creative place after years of putting it second to the needs of her family.
And so it seems with one idea comes another, and she's got her momentum now.
And I'm proud of her. Proud that she's finding success, yes, but more so breaking through the walls of a notion that there's a time limit on potential or passion or dreams.
It's something I've wondered about in my unconventional career as a musician and writer. I wondered how it might fit in later in my life, especially in my new role as a mother.
But I look at my mom bringing home samples of coffee beans, reading up on latte technique and ordering coffee house furniture as she celebrates a new decade of her life with a new challenge, and she motivates me. Not just to work hard and do what I need to do for my family, but also with her example that, whether you're 10 or 60, if you fuel the flame, life can continue to inspire you.
Jessie Veeder is a musician and writer living with her husband and daughter on a ranch near Watford City, N.D. Readers can reach her at jessieveeder@gmail.com .
