The Jenn

The funny thing about Jenn is that neither of us can remember how we met. I finally texted her: "I'm writing our story — where did we meet?" Her response, essentially: "I actually have no clue." Honestly, that might be the most accurate description of the friendship. There was never really a beginning. Jenn simply appeared in my life and already felt familiar.

Jenn — Jennifer Keim Swartz, of JKeim Studio — is an incredible artist, and I was obsessed with her work long before we made anything together. She came to me with the idea: a horse scarf, inspired by her Off to the Races collection. "Horse people love scarves," she told me. "I think it will be a really good seller."

She was not wrong. Hold that thought.

I started working on it. Then CB Grey got busy. Then I got overwhelmed. Then the deadline galloped right past me — and I handled it with one of my least effective coping mechanisms: I felt guilty, became ashamed I hadn't finished, and avoided the person I'd disappointed. For approximately six months. Ignoring something does not make it disappear, by the way. It just lets the guilt sit quietly in the corner and grow teeth.

The next time I saw Jenn, I had constructed an entire imaginary scenario in which she was furious and our friendship was over. Jenn walked up to me first. And in that calm, loving way she has, she made the whole thing feel smaller than the monster I'd been feeding for six months. I told her the truth: "I'm sorry. I love you. I completely dropped the ball." She hugged me. "It's okay," she said. "Let's do it this year."

The story I'd been telling myself for six months was so much scarier than the ninety-second conversation that replaced it.

So we started again — and thank God, because the scarf became infinitely better than the one we'd originally planned. Her contour horses and jockey sit at the center of a giant sunburst, rays of orange and blue and cream firing in every direction, more of her horses running through the corners. We went back and forth on every placement and color, and I met a whole different Jenn: a complete badass who knew her artwork, knew her customer, and refused to settle until the design felt like both of us. Both artists in the finished piece. Both voices.

And she was right about the other thing, too: horse people really do love scarves. The Jenn became one of my best-selling designs.

But when I look at it now, I don't just see the horses. I see proof that the truth is almost never as scary as the six-month story you tell yourself about it — and what happens when someone loves you enough to walk up to you first.