January 9th, 2019
Love Letters to Creative Kindreds #3 – Becca Gilgan & Eugen Sakhnenko
Dear Becca (& Eugen, a bit further down the page),
You sit in the middle the night a group of us give you a ride home from an entrepreneur meetup. I think both you and your glasses are cool, and that feeling happens where I’m not friends with someone yet but I want to be so I act a bit giddy like I do when I drink champagne. You are unaware, but I have ‘scooped’ you, as in: (Ariel voice) I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but someday you’d be part of my world. Despite how creepy that may sound, I mean it purely.
The dopamine rush that occurs whenever I see an RSVP slide into my inbox for one of our Harvest Table Dinners never gets old. I click on the email to see who it is and it’s you and I am thrilled! You come; you eat; you mingle. You make appropriate noises as I place the platters of food down at your table. The kind of noises that indicate that maybe you’ve scooped ME.
This notion is solidified when your partner in life and business, Eugen, attends one of our following Harvest Table Dinners because you had such a great time and want him to experience it too. I selfishly seat him at my table. I #scoop again.
The next time we meet, there is a makeup team. I innocently suggest a friend’s puppy for a commercial photoshoot you two are working on and promptly find myself volunteered as tribute to a) watch the puppy b) act in the commercial as the puppy’s mom c) see you two do what you do best. I let my hair be parted differently and straightened to the point I don’t recognize my own reflection; I let my leg be humped repeatedly; I let my college acting diploma be worth something for 8 hours, but mostly I let myself be inspired by how both of you work together.
There is ease and respect and exactly the right amount of friction to elicit work that is greater than the sum of its parts. Both of you step into your respective professional roles, using the language of your relational dynamic to effectively communicate. You do so more with the varying degrees of your eyebrow angles than with words because your time spent working and doing life together has taught you how the other thinks and sees. It’s beautiful; at moments tender and tense; often hilarious.
It’s a gig made complex by a client who speaks an entirely different language, and how you both show up for one another while navigating the difficulty of that speaks volumes about your integrity and your hearts. You make and hold space for everyone you work with on set and your positive attitude and professional demeanor sweeps away ruffled feathers as effectively as the vacuum the commercial is about. The puppy is not the only one who steals my heart that day.
Moments where I’m so glad we’ve met:
1) When we meet for cocktails that taste like earl grey and peppercorn and beam at one another my cheeks hurt from the beaming. We talk about our businesses and are not sure whom would win if we competed as to whom is more inspired by whom. Lol so many whoms.
2) When you and Eugen agree to collab on a Harvest Table Dinner in 2019. I can’t wait to somehow interpret your raised eyebrow twinspeak through food!
3) When you come over to drop off the notebooks you graciously donated to our retreat Self Care Starter kits and stay for tea and we talk about everything except business. You tell me Eugen hand-wrapped the package of notebooks, hand-picking each to reflect the different journeys the women attending might be on, and I beam again.
4) When I unwrap my notebook at the retreat and it’s the one with the print by Jen Collins that says “Embrace Beginnings” and bring it home and unashamedly put it in what Feng Shui assures me is my ‘Romance Corner.’ Here’s the thing: you two are expanders for me for what it means to be a partner and what it can look like to blend talents and hearts and make it work.
Much love and thanks again for your generosity! The fact that your notebooks hold the thoughts and dreams of the people whom attended something that used to be in MY thoughts and dreams but is now a reality is beyond heartening.
Much love,
Sonja
There is nothing I love so much as being witness to others following their calling and creating delicious spaces for you to connect and be inspired. You’ll find a series of love letters to creative kindreds I’ve discovered whose passion, talent and depth of spirit are palpable on the blog, and who generously donated their products to the women attending our retreat. Does this describe you or someone you know? Feel free to learn more about our partnership model here for our upcoming retreats. Want to attend a retreat in person? We have our Spring retreat coming up March 22-24th. Learn more and register for your spot today!
To learn more about Becca, Eugen and their company Worker Bee Supply Co.:
Website: www.workerbeesupply.com
Instagram: @workerbeesupply
Product Photo by: Jodianne Beckford