Believing in the Makebelievable

A true story.

Dear Kula Diaries,

“I think Facebook wants me to buy a ukulele,” Aaron said to me one day. He showed me his cell phone… and a curious ad for a ukulele, “It keeps showing up!” he said.

A few months earlier, Aaron and I had talked about what he wanted to do in his life. “I don’t really know,” he had told me, “I’ve never really thought about it.” He explained to me that he had moved through his life… and career… very much on auto-pilot. As a kid, growing up in a ‘blue-collar’ town, he got a job working at a paper mill… and then applied for a job as a railroad conductor because a friend told him that railroad workers got paid really well (they do, in many cases, but his friend forgot to mention the part about the stress and horrendous work hours).

Aaron had seen me begin the process of creating something else in my life as I moved from a career as a railroad police officer to the founder of an outdoor gear company — and he was ready to do the same thing. “The most important thing,” I said sagely, “Is that you don’t need to know what it is yet. Start meditating”, I told him, “And we’ll just see what happens.”

I want to backtrack a little bit — because Aaron is not the type of person with zero interests or passions — he just never thought that he was good enough to pursue any of them. As a kid, he started playing guitar, and loved it, but was forced to stop taking lessons. Then, in high school, he started doing stained glass — and also was supremely talented at it, but didn’t think that it was something he could do for a living. After graduating college, Aaron became really interested in flying, and decided to get his pilot’s license — which he did. He had a dream of becoming a commercial pilot, but very sadly discovered that he was colorblind, which prevented him from considering commercial aviation as a career. When he looked around at his life, everybody that he knew was doing the same thing — working at a paper mill. And, so, he thought that’s what his life was going to be: get a job to make money, because people don’t do what they love for a living.

When Aaron and I met, we were both working for the railroad — both in jobs that we had, ‘ended up’ in. I didn’t dislike working for the railroad at that time — but it also wasn’t something that I was unbelievably passionate about. Aaron was working as a ‘Trainmaster’, which is a ridiculous term for somebody who supervises a railyard and all of the employees that are working to build trains. It was a very stressful job with a horrible schedule: Aaron worked 14 hour days and rotated working night shift every other month. We both loved to spend our time together hiking and backpacking, but Aaron’s schedule left very little time for him to discover the other things that interested him.

Which is why, when Aaron told me about the Facebook ukulele ads — I started to pay attention. Coincidentally, a few days after Aaron mentioned the ukulele to me, we had an appointment to visit a violin maker’s shop. I had done a ‘violingram’ on my own personal Facebook feed sharing about a young boy who had a dream of learning how to play the violin. This boy was from a low-income home, where purchasing a violin was not an option. Unbelievably, I received donations over $1,000, and I was able to purchase a violin to give to this young man a few weeks later. Aaron and I had to visit the violinmaker’s shop to pick the violin up, and while we were there, we started chatting with his wife. I’m not sure how the conversation came up, but suddenly she was scurrying away from us… and she came back… with a ukulele! She started talking about a ukulele group that her husband, the violinmaker, performed with… and she showed us the ukulele that he owned.

I was convinced. It was only a few weeks before Christmas… and I wasn’t sure if Aaron would like it or not, but I bought him a ukulele. I just didn’t think that it could be an accident — it seemed and felt like we were being pinged in the direction of the ukulele.

On Christmas Day, Aaron opened his ukulele… and I don’t think he put it down all day long. It came with a beginner’s book about chords, and he studied and learned the chords all day, and by the end of the day he was able to play a simple song with a simple strum pattern. Within a few weeks, we had started playing music together — which was truly remarkable. Over the course of my entire life, I had played music with hundreds of other musicians, but I had never played music with somebody who was my husband!

Aaron quickly became obsessed with the ukulele — and he graduated from one ukulele to two… and then we went to Hawaii… and he acquired a third one. He even purchased a small travel ukulele that he could take with him on work trips, and he’d practice in his hotel room. During COVID, I contacted Tyde Music to make him a custom travel pocket ukulele. As often as we could, we started practicing music together. I was already hiking into the mountains with Rose for The Musical Mountaineers, but I wondered if I could do something similar with Aaron.

Now… let me backtrack again a little bit here… because in order to understand how the next part of this story happened, you need to know about the Bigfoot Kula Cloth photo shoot and the Bigfoot Wedding. My friend Marie was an adventure elopement photographer at the time, living in her van… and we had this funny idea about doing a photoshoot with a Bigfoot… where Bigfoot ended up ‘stealing’ a Kula Cloth from me while I was trying to share the features of the cloth. We purchased a really horrible Bigfoot costume off Amazon in order to make this video… you can clearly see Aaron’s face through the eyes of the costume:

After we filmed this video, we were really inspired by the comical quality of the costume, and Marie had the idea to do a Bigfoot Elopement photo shoot — and she needed two models. Now, it’s already difficult enough to find folks who are willing to wake up at 1am to chase a sunrise… but just imagine trying to find two people who wanted to wake up at 1am to chase a sunrise and put on a Bigfoot Costume for a fake wedding ceremony. Eagerly, Aaron and I agreed that we were up for the task. And, so, on two separate occasions, we posed in the most horrendous Bigfoot costumes ever for an emotional adventure elopement of two mythical creatures:

All of these Bigfoot photos are by the amazing Marie Vanderpool:

Now, contemporaneously to these Bigfoot Elopements… I was also in the midst of ‘figuring out’ how to print Artist Series Kula Cloths. When I first started making Kulas, I only had figured out how to print large rolls of printed fabric featuring repeated patterns… but, very quickly, I figured out that we could print one-off designs on the Kulas. I asked Amanda, our creative director, if she could create a unicorn print for our first Kula Cloth… and she painted the most magical, crystal, unicorn forest — and, naturally, I had to buy a mask so that I could announce its existence:

I even filmed the most ridiculous video ever, while wearing the unicorn mask. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about the fact that we could suddenly make Kulas with a single painting on them. Also, I’d like to point out that this video was very obviously filmed before I started The Dance Experiment. Don’t judge.

Unbeknownst to me and Aaron… a unique trail was blazing itself… and the pieces were starting to come together. I don’t even know how it happened, but one day the idea struck me — what if the unicorn and the Bigfoot could play music together? What would that be like? I had never wanted to duplicate The Musical Mountaineers with Aaron… but I also wanted to do something really special and fun with our own music — I just didn’t know what it was. And, then, suddenly — I did. I pitched the idea to Aaron — who is, one of those rare, amazing people who will willingly dress in a Bigfoot costume. He was in.

And so, Aaron and I practiced some music and decided that we would try to perform together… as a unicorn and a Bigfoot. Aaron hadn’t memorized all of his music yet, so we wrote his chords on a large piece of cardboard that we attached to the tripod — and he had to peer out of the vacant mask eyes in order to follow along. Also, the hands of the costume made it impossible to play the ukulele, so we used some of my hair ties to ‘rubberband’ the gloves to the outside of his hands to give the appearance that his Bigfoot hands were doing the strumming. In June of 2019, we hauled our instruments and our fantastical costumes to a rocky ledge in the Cascades… and The Makebeliveables were born:

It’s funny what happens when you are open to the infinite possibilities that exist in this world. Never, in a million years, could I have imagined that Aaron and I would ever dress up in silly costumes to play music… and he didn’t even imagine that he’d ever perform music with me. Music was always something that I did — not something we we did together. And yet, the universe has a funny way of working out, when you start to listen. As the years passed, Aaron continued to play his ukulele — and our music led us to many opportunities to perform at different events, weddings and even a few large venues. We performed together in the snow and in the desert… and even in a canoe and on a rock in the middle of the lake where we live.

When I think about my own journey with Kula, I know that music was an important part of that process for me. When I was playing music with The Musical Mountaineers … I wasn’t doubting myself. When I was playing music, I was simply right there — in that beautiful moment of life, creating something special. For Aaron, it was the same — we played music together, with absolutely zero expectation of anything ‘happening’ from the music — but ultimately, I believe that the experience of watching his musical path unfold, allowed him to remain more open to other possibilities as well. A few years ago, he felt inspired to start pursuing his stained glass art again — and this time, instead of telling himself that he wasn’t good enough to do it, he started his own business called Lake House Glass… and immediately had a full docket of customers. Aaron did stained glass full time for almost a year, before deciding to join me with Kula Cloth.

Aaron’s path started, similarly to mine, with a question: What will happen if I am open to the possibilities of life? It’s easy to ignore the answers. It’s easy to dismiss the nudge to buy a ukulele, or make an excuse not to try something new. The answers to our questions are not always loud and rambunctious — in fact, most often, they are soft and whispered. And yet, if we learn how to live with our hearts open — we will begin to trust and know when we are receiving those answers. Saying ‘yes’ to learning the ukulele is easy to do — but it’s also just as easy to say ‘no’ — because, at the time, it didn’t seem like it was going to be anything. But, looking back at the path now, it’s clear that the ukulele was so much more than just learning a new skill — it was an open door into a world of possibilities that had never been explored.

Over the past few years, Aaron has dressed up in the Bigfoot costume more times than I can count — and each time, I find myself laughing hysterically. There is something (obviously) hilarious about an adult man putting on a very poor quality Bigfoot costume. And, yet, there’s also something oddly beautiful about it. Many times, it has made me cry — because I know in my heart that as I tie the string on the back of a sub par Bigfoot costume, it’s only because the man who is wearing it, believes in me (and in us) so much that he’s willing to do anything. When I see these videos… when I watch and hear our music together… when I tie that string on the back of the Bigfoot costume… what I notice more than anything else… is love.

Attaching the Sasquatch hand with a hair tie! Photo by Marie Vanderpool.

The Makebelievables started as an idea to bring something magical into the world, but what they really ended up showing me is that you don’t need a unicorn mask or a Bigfoot costume in order to create your own magic. Sometimes, the most magical part of something is hidden in smaller moments, that nobody else sees. When I look at our videos now, I do see something otherworldly and mystical — but I also see something else: I see two people who care about each other very much, and who love each other exactly how they are. I do not feel judged for who I am with Aaron — I do not feel condemned for the mistakes I have made or idolized for some unrealistic image of who I have ‘become’ — I feel seen, exactly how I am… in this moment. I see somebody who has believed in me, even when I have stumbled. I see the infinite potential that exists in Aaron, even when he has been unable to see it himself. In those silly, lighthearted moments of fairytale music — we can create a new legend — a life that can be anything that we want it to be. Maybe each of us has a little bit of a unicorn inside of us too — maybe the existence of The Makebelievables is simply an outward expression of the magic that can be found when we quiet our minds, open our hearts, and learn to listen to the music of the universe.

Without the costumes. Photo by Marie Vanderpool.

Friends, thank you all so much for being here this week — and for letting me share such a fun part of my life. I’ve told Aaron that we need to revive The Makebelievables from their slumber, so maybe we will be back with a new video and concert soon. Keep creating your own magic, and stay open to the infinite possibilities of the world — your ideas matter and you do have something special and important to share with the whole universe.

Sending you all so much love!