My Small Paradise: One Metre. Three Corners. Enough.

These days I spend sixteen to twenty hours a day lying down, resting. It is what my body asks for, and I have learned to listen. Every day the strength I have is a small, fixed amount — I cannot spend it twice.

But when the energy and an idea arrive at the same time, I get up and go to my desk. That is where I want to be.

A round table, one metre wide

My desk is not large. It is a round table, one metre across — no bigger than a dining chair turned twice. It sits by the window, and everything I need lives on it.

Three small worlds on one table

I have divided it into three parts. On one side I string: the beads sorted in their trays, the cord, the little scissors. On another side I photograph: the mannequins, the ring lights, the bamboo board where each piece waits for its picture. And on the third side sits the computer, where I write these words to you.

Small space, enough room

People imagine that making beautiful things needs a big studio. It does not. On the mornings my fingers tremble, I work slower and place each bead as if it were the first. On the steadier mornings, the same fingers move almost as they once did. Either way, the table waits. A metre is enough to begin, to fail, to try again, and to finish. When your energy is limited, you learn to work in small windows — twenty minutes here, an hour there — and a small table suits small windows perfectly. It is not a limitation. It is a shape that fits my life.

Contentment

A person does not need very much to be satisfied. I have a table, some light, and a few hours when my hands remember what they love. On the days I cannot leave my bed, I think of that table and it makes the waiting gentler. On the days I can sit at it, I am happy.

Some of the pieces in the shop were finished on this table. Sometimes the one you wear is the one that was made here, on a steady morning, one bead at a time.

知足常樂 — contentment brings its own constant joy. I did not choose the smallness of my days, but I have found that a small paradise is still a paradise. One metre. Three corners. Enough.