May's Screen Printing Salmon Run
by JBEZL
May. 15, 2005 20:37

The next two weeks have all the makings of a recipe for hell.

We've got about twenty grand in jobs to be printed. We're lurching toward tight deadlines on every one of them. We're printing shirts for giant events like the Steamboat Marathon, local charities like the Taylor-White Golf tournament and The Memorial Hospital's 5K Run/Walk in memory of cancer victims, as well as tiny happenings, such as a run of uniforms for a soccer team out of Steamboat and an order of T-shirts for an elementary school in Meeker.

For the people involved, each and every event is the most important. And Chaos Ink can't afford to let a single one of them down.

Two weeks.

Weeks that will pass in blurry days, filled with hours of going over seps, taping up screens, mixing inks, bringing colors into alignment on the press, wrestling with difficult print orders, stubborn materials and quirky details, like which size uniform gets which number?

It's going to be brutal. I know it already. And yet today in the shower I told myself I wouldn't let fear be my sole experience of the weeks ahead. I've got exactly what a business owner dreams of: more work than I can handle. My experience should be one of thankful, deliberate labor, or a calm, but stubborn march through it, knowing I've got a task to do and the tools with which to do it.

Why does this mortal fear need to be a part of the process? I'm not in any mortal danger. None of my limbs are in jeapordy. And if I fuck up and miss a deadline or botch an order, it certainly won't have been on purpose -- on the contrary, I will have nearly killed myself to prevent it. No one will have cause to hang me. There will be no gallows, no firing squad, no cold barrel to my temple.

I have a great opportunity -- an opportunity I have largely created for myself. And great moments, I've heard it said, spring from great opportunities.

I'll try to document the tough journey ahead. I'll speak about the obstacles, which won't be in short supply. But I will remember to relax my shoulders, smile at myself in the mirror (even when it's 3a.m.), and make the most of these coming days, each of which will be a gift, a glorious day of life on Earth, with food in my belly and a roof over my head and set of tasks laid out before me which will require all those tools I love to use: creativity and calculation, patience and decisive action.

We ride @ dawn.