L. BUBBEWISDOM

Taken from A Patchwork Life: The Hands-On Guide To Living by Louise Silk

Available as an ebook: A Patchwork Life: The Hands-On Guide To Living 

BubbeWisdom ties together philosophical values, physical consciousness, psychological emotions and ephemeral spirit to improve the likelihood of right action in the right way at the right time.

The first grandchild arrives along with the question of what will she call you? Wow, it is tough to determine your own name! The easiest is to stick with family tradition. My Mom used Nana, as did her Mother. I took the more challenging path, settling on the very old-world Yiddish, Bubbe, with the caveat to redefine the name to more adequately represent me as the contemporary grandmother of today. 

My first assignment was caring for my son’s first born. I took over an idea from her daycare to give a daily written report to her parents. The writing became a Bubbe Blog on her very own personal website.

After that experience, I jumped at the opportunity to blog for our Jewish newspaper. This motivated the creation of a mission statement, a website, and a personal blog entitled BubbeWisdom along with my goal to continue piecing together a contemporary life of family, quilts, politics, philanthropy, and spirituality.

In 2016, I sat across from my tax person, telling her that having inherited money from the sale of family property, I planned to pay off my mortgage. She advised that it was better to form an LLC and sell the loft to that entity. I could pay back the mortgage, pay myself rent as the LLC and at the same time deduct that rent as a business expense for SIlkQuilt. These changes reduced my cost of living with an added a bonus; I could take one inspirational trip a year as a legitimate tax deduction. Thus, BubbeWisdom, LLC was born. 

My first trip was to experience Lavender fields in Provence. I was haunted the entire trip, chasing its inspirational purpose. At the end of the trip, an exhibition of Paul Klee at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, gave me the answer. In his artist statement, Klee expressed how he felt unable to compete with other artists of his day. This allowed him to do simply whatever brought him pleasure, without regard to others. Relieved and satisfied, I understood that BubbeWisdom was my good fortune to use as I pleased. I was free to be and do the authentic artistic me.