The Day That No One Chose Me
A Field Of Yes In A Sea Of No
I pull off the highway. Kill the engine. The old green pickup rattles itself to rest on a patch of dirt choked with fennel and tickweed.
I take a swig of iced espresso I bought eleven hours ago, left to bake in the cupholder all day. It's watery and hot, a punishment going down. I take another swig.
The cars whip past on the highway. I blink. And then- it comes. Big-baby sobs, lumbering up my esophagus, hiccuping my heavy shoulders. I gulp in chestfuls of air. Air, thick with white sage and lavender and yarrow. Bouquets sitting in the seat next to me.
Pulling over to cry. Lord. This isn’t something I do.
But. The alternative is driving straight home- to tell my husband what happened today. And right now, I can’t trust myself to do this in a way that doesn’t solicit his pity.
Cars come down the off-ramp every few minutes. They stop at an empty intersection before turning left towards town. I imagine someone might notice this hunkered old pickup, see me crying, assume I’ve broken down. Pull over. I’ll tell them the story in the exact way I’ve chosen not to tell my husband. “I just spent nine hours at market, launching a product I’ve put my entire soul into, and I didn’t sell one single thing. Not. One.” Sniff, sniff.
They will feel sorry for me. Me, this inconsolable woman, with such heart! They will become the first customer of the day. They will be the Messenger of Universal Abundance who sweeps in at the last second to assure me: all is not lost.
I hate that I have these thoughts. But I do.
The cars keep passing.
Pity: It’s the last thing I want. Or maybe I do want it. But it’s the last thing I need. Because these tears are not of sadness, or disappointment, or anger. They are something else entirely. And I’m going to figure it out. On my own.
Let’s start with what’s true.
I lied. There is a little disappointment in the tears. Because I was counting on sales. I am kicking myself for the paper sack full of overpriced beverages I bought to fuel me through the event. Cucumber soda and iced coffee infused with Reishi mushrooms. Prickly pear kombucha. Lord.
But also, I told you the truth. I did put my whole soul into it. The tallow balm. I’ve been working on it for nearly eight months now like an unhinged alchemist. Balancing, refining, making it perfect. Making it sing. Making it perfect.
It didn’t start out this way. The first batch of tallow balm was created for a Holiday Art Fair last December. It was a consolation prize for people who couldn’t afford my paintings.
Okay, that’s a lie, too. It was a shield. For my paintings. An offering for people who didn’t understand my work, who couldn’t see it. Something functional and practical.
I stacked the jars of tallow balm on a long black table, alongside hand-made tallow soap and eucalyptus shower steamers and shiny gold Christmas ornaments made from resined oak leaves. All of it, lined up, creating a spectacle in front of my artwork.
And it was a shield for me, too. I rarely share my work in public. It’s painful to watch a person look at something you poured your soul into and not see anything special.
Some artists and writers have a healthy relationship with rejection. It barely touches them. But I don’t. Rejection has always sliced me open.
I suspect—and I’ve only realized this recently— it’s because the initial reason I became an artist was so that I could offer the world something other than myself.
I know I’m not good enough, but maybe this is.
I know I’m not beautiful enough, but maybe this is.
I know you won’t choose me, but maybe you will choose this.
I hate admitting this, but I think it’s the truth.
The paintings I shared at that holiday art fair were the culmination of my life’s work. A reflection of decades of experimentation and failing and heartache and sacrifice.
To make someone stop at the booth was enough. Even if they were just stopping to touch the Christmas ornaments. A cursory glance at my work was enough.
I didn’t sell any art at that fair. (I made sure of that, didn’t I?) But I nearly sold out of everything else. People loved the tallow balm.
So, I decided to keep making it. To support my art, to sustain me.
To shield me.
It would be easy, I thought.
But, of course, I became obsessive. Maniacal.
Over months, the balm transformed from a consolation prize to a full-on rebellion against soulless products. I grew most of the ingredients from seed, foraged for others in the forest. To source the tallow, I set up an old-world barter deal with the ranch at the bottom of our mountain. Down there, the cows roam free.
Making the balm was a ritual of slow devotion. The purification, the straining, the infusion of plant medicine, the balancing of the oils. It took days. And then the jar, itself: a reliquary.
At some point, I began to love the balm. Like, really love it. Without meaning to, I had elevated it to art. And, I was certain that others would love it, too. Convinced that all the devotion and presence I crammed into that little jar would create a an irresistible, intoxicating force field.
But also, the balm was no longer a shield.
It was the real thing. A reflection of me.
I showed up to the market over-caffeinated and already sweating. I was sharing a booth with my friend Sofia, a master gardener & edgy mystic. Her table overflowed with drop-dead gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, purple cabbages, red Kuri squash, Persian cucumbers.
And there, in the back of the booth, was my table: elegant and precise. Bouquets of white sage and lavender in vintage mason jars, sweetgrass plants, and my pristine tallow balm arranged on a retail display stand I crafted from twisted madrone branches.
As the event began, the facilitator asked all the vendors to gather in a circle and join hands. She invited us to take a moment to center ourselves, to set our intention for the day.
My intention was simple: to remain in coherence. To connect with people the way I connect with my paintings, with the trees, with the flowers. To listen. To show up without a mask. To walk in the Field. This time, though, with living, breathing humans.
The market opened. All day long, visitors stopped in the booth to ogle Sofia’s plants and barely noticed my balm arranged like an understated icon in the back.
Normally, I might have felt jealous or ashamed. But today, I was happy for her. This was her soul offering. And it was being received. In any case, I had made my choice: today I would walk the Field.
The people I met. Lord. Who knew these sorts of people existed?
Kara Hagedorn, a woman who bonded with an injured red-tailed hawk for twenty-five years, and gave it chicken eggs to raise so it could experience motherhood.
Runa, an amateur botanist who distills flower essences into tinctures you imbibe like spiritual medicine. Three drops, three times a day.
Ernest, a soon-to-be retired martial arts master from Oakland, wandering the festival with his pit bull, who explained the importance of stepping down as the master—even if you don’t feel ready—so others can carry on the tradition.
Sue Ellen Parkinson, a brilliant artist who’d painted Mary Magdalene over twenty times.
Buddy, a man who shared his journey with sobriety, beaming and effusive with how beautiful life was becoming.
During these encounters, I forgot myself. Being with these people- it was like being in Nature.
I noticed the shape of their lips when they smiled. Where the sun had kissed them, again and again. The rhythm of their language. The strange grace in the way they’d break eye contact when speaking a difficult truth. The glint of suffering behind their nervous laughter.
In the forest, you never wonder what the trees think about you. Somehow—miraculously, even— I never once thought what these people thought about me.
Whether I was good enough. Whether I was beautiful enough. Whether I was being chosen.
I just was simply: present.
But also. No one chose my tallow balm. My precious, sacred offering. My beating heart in an amber jar.
It had happened. My worst fear, realized.
This exact scenario—the one I’ve shaped my life around avoiding. The one that brings momentum to a halt. Stops me from sharing a new painting. Or writing a newsletter. Or going after opportunities I desperately want. It’s the reason why I don’t share ninety percent of what I create. It’s the reason why I stay hidden. It’s the fuel that powers my joy-destroying, hovering deathlord perfectionism.
Not one person chose my offering.
And yet. Here, I am. Still breathing. Still standing.
Somehow—for the first time—this rejection didn’t wound me.
I didn’t find this odd until the very end of the market, when I was taking all my unsold items back to the truck, and it suddenly dawned on me that I had failed. A lump began to form in my throat.
At that exact moment, my spiral into self-loathing was cut short when an old man selling CBD mocktails beckoned me to his table and offered me a drink. “On the house,” he said, when he saw my hesitation. He sat at a rickety plastic table in a rickety plastic chair. He said his name was Fred. My father’s name.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Make me what you would make for yourself,” I said, sitting down at the table across from him, voice now shaking, inexplicably touched by this small, kind gesture.
Behind dark sunglasses, tears formed in my eyes. I watched Fred pour a bona fide smorgasbord into a dented plastic cup: tonic water, his CBD potions, a flavored syrup, a strawberry, a jalapeño. He explained that he used sound waves to shake the magic crystals from the cannabis leaves, and that’s why his concoctions were so powerful.
And the brew was strong. Medicinal. Almost immediately, it began to shake something loose in me.
Exiting the festival, I encountered Ernest again, his pit bull still smiling wide. “Thank you for your kindness today,” he said, and we hugged.
I got in the truck, and headed home.
Five minutes down the road, I pulled over.
Here. To this patch of dirt. Where I’m blubbering like a baby, without knowing why.
But suddenly, a veil lifts, and I do know.
These tears are not about my rejected balm.
They are about grief for every time I hid or made myself small. For every time I carried a shield so people wouldn’t look too closely. Every time I constructed an elaborate mask so that someone might choose me. So that someone might love me. Grief, finally moving through me. Grief—and elation—at the stunning realization:
I wasn’t chosen.
And it tasted like freedom.
I carry this forward now—into every offering, every painting, every jar of balm, every seed I plant.
No more shields. No more asking to be chosen. No more worrying if it makes sense. Just: here is what I make. Here is what I think. If it speaks to you, take it. If not, then bless you, anyway.
Here you can find my offerings:
🌿 Tallow balm & Medicine→ artisannafarms.com
🖼️ Cyanotypes, Paintings, Prints→ annajudd.com
🖋️ Scales Prints → scalesfineart.com
Just ordered balm. Can't wait to try it. Also love the post!
Gah this is so painfully relatable. Thank you for sharing this. 💗💗