The other side

Not everything that happens at Market is wonderful. Most of it is reliably so. I realized this week that where I like to set up is one of the quiet centers of the maelstrom. Even when the edges of the blocks are wild and thumping with rhythms and people passing in every direction, in our neighborhood people can eddy a bit and slow down. We can hear ourselves think. For some reason several people this week asked me if I would take less for my hats. I always say no with a big smile, and will give reasons if pressed. I find it coercive, and I don't get why I should give up my profit, the part I live on, for a stranger so they can feel dominant and special. The price is the price.

Someone I used to know when I worked as an instructional assistant was stopped for a moment in front of my booth, and I called out to him. He didn't say much, except that his mother had died. I jumped from my chair in shock and though I was unable to be of much help to him, I gave him my phone and email so he can contact me if he wants to talk about it.

I was his one-on-one assistant for a few years starting in first grade, when his Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis was a new one, and together he and I and his family and teachers studied everything we could find about the disorders associated with the syndrome. He had a pretty hard time adapting to school, and the school had a hard time learning too. The whole experience took a big toll on us all and his mother dedicated much of her life to it. Things were very intense.

And yet, he grew up and through most of his difficulties, and now her fiercely burning being has changed form. I'm feeling a complicated grief.

Complicated, indeed. My ex-partner called me this week to complain about my last blog entry. He told me I am Soooo Complicated. He apparently doesn't know what a comment like that says about him. Anyway he basically failed to read and understand the entry and tried to run some guilt on me about my failure to mention an extremely generous and lovely gift I received from his current girlfriend.

It was a beautiful gift. She went all out and filled the basket in the picture with goodies, some of which are shown. Many are eaten. I potted the cyclamen and it looks great in the pot she included. I really appreciated the gift! I thanked her a couple of times.

He tried to shame me though, for being ungrateful, and I ended up telling him about a whole raft of the things he does that don't work for me. It was almost all behavior he could improve with just a little research into NVC, which ironically I mentioned in the very same blog.

A little research. Some thoughtful consideration of the things that don't work so well, with some attention to improving them. I took it for granted that all people do this, but apparently some people don't. I lost patience with him and said quite a few things that I have mostly kept to myself regarding how he deals with me. I doubt he heard them. Many times people tend to get stuck in their own hurt and can't really hear what others are trying to tell them. It takes a very open listening style to hear criticism without hurt.

I'm showing a picture of the gift and some of the other cards I received, not because he wanted me to, but because I agree that I seemed ungrateful. One of the things I told him was that he doesn't get to say what I write in my blog. It's personal. Read it or don't.

I'm trying to stick to the positive, but life just doesn't work that way. It's just as important to process the difficult things as it is to celebrate the lovely ones. It's tough to get the balance right. Things we don't plan, come to make us think in new ways or go back to thinking in some old ones. I don't think about my relationships with that ex- or that student and his mother in the same ways I thought when I was immersed in working within them. Most of it is gone, but what remains is whether or not we greet each other with respect, kindness, and a renewed try for improvement.

That's what I want from relationships. One of the reasons we aren't together is that he sat on the couch and told me he wasn't going to change. I was in my early forties, a fairly new mother, and changing a lot right then. Our orientation seemed to be at opposition.

That breakup led to the job and that led to the exploration of neurology and behavior and a lot of therapy. I'm better for it all, no question, but I would not want to repeat any of it. I've struggled a lot with the past and how to integrate the lessons of it without being disturbed forever. I had to change. I wanted to change. I still do.

I told the ex- he would be better off if I didn't write about him in my blog. He might have even more issues with the aftermath of his issue. The concepts of NVC, the various definitions of violence, are useful information. They're not that hard to grasp. Coercion and shaming and passive-aggressive manipulation are tiring and don't work well. You might get your short-term needs met, but you aren't going to have the life you would have if you had just done a little research and a little introspection. Maybe some journaling. It might be complicated, might be very complicated.

Because stuff comes at you. You have to be able to stay grounded and deal with it. You have to learn something about the underlying needs that so many people can't really verbalize, but they usually express, and can be helped to express in ways that will lead to them actually being heard, acknowledged, and even occasionally met. It's important.

See you in the eddy. Wear your life jacket anyway, even though the waters seem calm. Learn about what causes you to shut down, to melt down. Figure out the triggers to your irrationality. There is a sequence, and while it can not always be stopped or prevented, it gets easier every time, especially if you have hope that someone is listening, someone understands. That's what helped my student and his mother and I get through our hard times. We could have done better, if we knew then what we know now.

So we will do better now. It was good to see my student, pretty grown up. He's a painter, and I can't wait to see his art. We might do some work together. I think that would feel good.

Change can be okay, even pleasant. Anyway, it happens. Rest in peace, N., and strength to your family. I'll be thinking about you.

Feliz Crumple-años

I made it through my 60th birthday last week, not as carefree and celebrated as I had hoped. A few of my worst personality aspects surfaced, specifically the drive to meet unrealistic expectations and irrational needs. Mother's Day coming right after my birthday just adds to the burden of garbage and I tend to distance and sink a bit and revert to the ancient coping mechanisms of early years.
I am the child who is famous for opening a big box, pulling out newspapers, and chirping "Just what I always wanted!" without even looking for the actual gift. I get caught up in the worthy/not worthy conundrum and flail around trying to let people know what will make me feel special without really wanting to think about the whole subject. I am uncomfortable with the attention at the same time as wanting it in a very child-like way. I suppose Mom shouldn't have made those Angel Food cakes every year. We were allowed to choose the menu for the day and I had no idea that angel food cake requires about a dozen eggs and is a lot of work. Mom was good to us.

*Requests that are demands* is a concept I learned about through NonViolent Communication (also known as Compassionate Communication) and I have tried hard, with the help of my son, to stop giving them out. The key is that "No" has to be a valid answer and has to be accepted. As a single person who has a big network but not a huge number of close friends, I have to remind people it is my birthday, let some know what I want or have planned, and mostly give myself the gifts I want. I do this with varying degrees of glee and dread. In a fit of isolation I decided FaceBook should not know my birthday any more, but finally late in the day I posted a picture with my orchid. I went to Down to Earth a couple of times in the surrounding weeks and bought garden tools and fertilizer and seeds, but passed up the plants, thinking I would buy myself flowers. I would have bought myself flowers on Tuesday but there were none at the first Tuesday Market, so I picked from my yard. I bought lots of food I wanted and ate things with lots of fat and calories.

My family wanted to know what I wanted, and I suggested an orchid, which arrived thrillingly mid-day. That wasn't big enough for my brother, who pressed me to stretch, so I thought of a hot-air balloon ride, but my friend who is also turning 60 was not excited about coming with me, and though I did research it online, I didn't get more excited, I got less excited. I hope I will still do it, even if I have to go alone.

I have an old rule about not working on my birthday, but I had a Board meeting, at which I had to take minutes, that evening. I could have skipped it I suppose, but instead I demanded a cake in a pretty request/demand way. Maybe totally demanding. I did get one, but it was kind of an uncomfortable satisfaction and I felt bad about it. It was delicious and I am very grateful to the lovely young woman who baked it, and to all who made it happen and celebrated with me. The "violent" way I got it was a good reminder of my below-the-surface demons, but it didn't stop me.

I have a son, who recently moved out, and I definitely fumbled the delicate position of being in the position of receiving celebration that is freely given. He did call me late that night, after I had walked down to knock on his door, (no answer) and before I had sent him an insulted email, thank goodness. He blew off Mother's Day, which I handled by sending him an email telling him I loved him and I always will, figuring if I couldn't get affection I could at least give it. We had a pretty negative exchange and a day or two later I discovered that when he had borrowed my lawnmower that Saturday, he had brought me a huge pile of clippings from his yard for my compost and I had failed to notice it.

So I got a Mother's Day present, but was graceless nevertheless. He refused to give me any of the unrealistic things I had asked for, but we kind of got back down to the essential argument that keeps us apart, me treating him like my child, and at the very least put it aside for another year. I got the gift of mildly triggering my PTSD patterns which is a very long subject for another place but it reminded me that if I set myself up and work too hard to meet these manufactured needs, I put myself at risk and go backwards. And as always, it brought some clarity to the things that don't work well for me, so I can stop setting myself up for them.

The part that made the whole experience graceful, at last, was the Saturday Market 40th Birthday celebration on Sunday. I had to get up early to make food for the potluck and do some tasks I had volunteered for, so I was tired and needed my usual Sunday time out, but the party was so pleasant and low-key that I just surfed through it in a soft fog. I danced and talked with people I hadn't conversed with in years, and some I had seen just the previous day.

Dancing zydeco swing with someone I have kind of a lifelong crush on, was nice and juicy. I stood in all the pictures from the 70's to the present. Turns out from my photo collection that I really started in 1976, not '77 as I had been saying. I felt a part of something big and important and yet intimate and private, something essential and shared and deep and wide and strong.

Just as we were starting to take the pictures it started to rain, and we will all look wet to remind us of the storm. Thunder and lightning and wind and so much rain we were an inch deep in it, even under the fantastic new tents! I found it hilarious and powerful, and it was noted that on the Sunday that OCF celebrated their 40th, the same thing happened. I fully believe Mother Nature is letting us know that she recognizes our power and the purity of our intention. I'm old enough to claim my woo-woo stuff, or more correctly I should have claimed it more strongly a long time ago instead of trying to hide my belief in magick. I probably don't fool anyone with my veneer of sensibility anyway.

It always cheers me up to be in nature when stuff happens and people howl. I would be sad if I lived in a place where no one ran outside into the thunderstorms and danced. I am glad we were spared the mud, as fun as that was at the Fair. I am very grateful for the reminder that if that kind of rain out of nowhere had happened on Saturday, I would have been scrambling, unprepared, and for all my 34 years of practice, I would have been caught in a very unprofessional position.

But we have this magical thing on Saturdays that brings good weather almost all of the time. We have our chants and wishes and faith, and we stand out on the edge and hope we won't get blown off. We go every week with undiminished optimism and we go home every week with some kind of satisfaction and some new insight. It is a truly amazing life we have made together and I am one of the luckiest ones.

I may not always get what I expect, but I always get what I need.

The trick is in recognizing it, when it arrives, and allowing it to feel satisfying. I took that one moment when I happened into a spot of sunlight, almost dried off and warm from dancing, to spread my arms and say to the sky, "Thank you, Mom."

Happy to be here. Thank you so much, all of you who try to love me and let me know it.