The Story of Us

If you asked us how this all came to be, I would tell you it all started in a coffee shop. He would tell you it all began back in the second grade, and he wouldn’t be kidding.

2000. A year of firsts, a new turn of the century, the year 7-year-old Zachary Peter Stager became pen pals with a girl named Emily Anne Schumann in the second grade. We grew up, grew apart, had art class in high school, grew together again, and went our separate ways once the thrills and possibilities of college swept us away to different states.

Insert the true growing years here...

He ended up studying marketing at TCNJ, while I plugged away at creative writing and art at Lycoming College. More meaningful yet were the years following graduation from college - the uncertainty, the self-doubt, and the struggle to delve into the working world in a career that was fulfilling and driven by a sense of purpose. Nothing seemed to pan out, and like most twenty-somethings, we each felt a bit hopeless and lost.

Two years out of college, he left a stressful recruiting job and unfurled a new path, applying to graduate school at Rutgers for Human Resources, and working part time at a university to help students find internships. I spent a summer walking across Spain, quite literally. The Camino de Santiago took me 500 miles from the border of France in the Pyrenees Mountains, to the edge of the ocean at the Spanish coastline.

I think it was our experiences, different and alike, that ultimately brought us together again - the raw trials before the reward of discovering who we really were and what paths we wanted to pursue. His part time position showed him he wanted to pursue a career in higher education, while mine allowed enough time inside my own head to give me the courage to apply to film school for directing and writing.

Maybe it was the intrigue of our commonalities that brought him into the coffee shop I worked at for a year in 2018, maybe it was the memory of our friendship in the second grade, or maybe it was the reminder that he had kept the name tag from my desk for eighteen years that caused him to walk through the door. We recognized each other immediately, and over a cup of coffee and hot chocolate, attempted to catch up on the years.

Fast forward through more coffee shop conversations and a semi-awkward first date, a hike to introduce him to my dog, attempting to hand make pizza for our first dinner together (bad idea), and courage via a bottle of red wine, and that was it.

Bumble n Rose was born from a desire to create. It wasn’t a grand scheme, a concept we thought would be a business. In the beginning, it was small - derived from a desire to work together, fueled by the same passion and a great love for the art of creating. Bumble, a nod to my childhood nickname, Emblebee, and Rose, a tribute to his father. Together, Bumble n Rose.

A mug on a windowsill

a breeze in branches

fingers tangled up

in hair.

A stack of wood,

two sprigs of rosemary

while dinner cooks,

a record spinning

around and around

and around.

Lips blowing heat out

of a cup of tea,

steam dancing

in window light before

disappearing,

the bathtub filling

with water.

You and me

and nothing

else.

-tyler knott gregson

I always loved the words of Tyler Knott, the easy, simple way he described life and love. But I never truly understood the beauty of it all until now, until him. Thank you, my love, for sparking inspiration in me again, however cheesy that may sound - it’s true. Because of this, I’ve found joy in painting again, in making a mess of the dining room table with paints and paper and pens sprawled out in a flurry of ideas, and I’ve seen the reward in others being able to enjoy what we’ve made, hanging our embroidery hoops on their walls, and little abstracts brightening up their cubicles.

We have a lot of growing to do. Bumble n Rose is in its early stages, it’s toddler years of fumbles and failures, but we promise to keep going and making and showing you new artwork and handmade ties and more week after week. We cannot wait for what is to come.

It’s with our greatest joy that we can share our lives, and our creations, with you all.

em + zac

bumble n rose