The Best Valentine's Day Card Ever

Once upon a time, a few careers ago, I worked for a pioneer in the field of commercial interior design named Alan von Eggers Rudd.

Alan was extraordinary in many ways with an unerring eye for good design and unique opportunities. Half Danish, half Russian, he was bold, self confident, innovative, fearless, sophisticated, fun-loving and completely charming.

Ours was a small company that often made a big splash at the national design shows in New York City, Los Angeles, and especially at Neocon in Chicago, where Alan was frequently acknowledged as having the most unique showroom for our state of the art furniture from Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Italy.

In addition to his passion for his work, Alan loved holidays and always swept us – his small staff – up in his celebrations of them.

Each Valentine’s Day, he went to a special high-end chocolatier to design and order handcrafted chocolates packaged in small wooden crates for those of us lucky enough to work with him. These large slabs of chocolate were custom decorated and highly personalized for each of us. Word about this got out and Alan made the evening news in Washington DC.

One Christmas, Alan told us to meet him for lunch at a local restaurant in Georgetown. Moments after we arrived, he made a crowd-stopping appearance pulling up on a motorcycle dressed as Santa with a sack of gifts for us over his shoulder.

Working for Alan, I was responsible for the important but rather mundane tasks of tracking our international shipments of furniture from factories throughout Europe onto containers crossing the Atlantic, then onto long-haul trucks for delivery at their destinations throughout the US. This was interesting initially, but after two years, I felt ready for something else.

Our company stationary stated we had three divisions, one of which was textiles. But there wasn’t much to the textiles division, I thought. So one day I asked Alan if I could have a change of job. He asked me what I had in mind.

“I’d like to head up the textiles division,” I said, “and grow it into something much bigger.” He looked at me for a moment, then said, “Okay. I’ll give you two years.”

I was astonished. I was just twenty-four years old with no experience and nothing to support this crazy idea but his belief in me.

That surprising moment launched a life-changing series of adventures. I visited and worked with mills in Germany, England and Scotland and traveled to cities throughout the US, marketing our unique fabrics to interior designers and architects and growing the textiles part of the company into an independent profit center – all under his guidance, inspiration and mentoring.

We worked together for more than seven years before parting ways. After a few missteps, I eventually moved on to the world of documentary films and public television.

And Alan? Some years later, he sold the company and bought an old chateau in the south of France which he renovated as he blazed into the wine-making business.

Alan often gave each of us cards handpicked for us on birthdays and other celebrations. I’ve kept every one of them, but this one is my favorite.

In just a few words, he was telling me it was okay to be a little different. I think it was his way of telling me that being different was actually my super power.