And now the home stretch

We have a few days now between the "big weekend" and the last three days of the Holiday Market, in which we have the self-assigned task to get everything right and finish up in style. I say that with tongue in cheek, because I don't know about you, but for me the biggest task is just managing emotional territory to stay positive and rational. I have my issues. Style is slipping, and most of us come on Christmas Eve in our pajamas and slippers.

The easiest thing for me to do is complain. My brain likes to look for reasons and solve problems, and when I am this tired the problems seem so large and troublesome and the process to solve them seems pretty far out of reach. The next easiest thing is to fix some blame...but fortunately for me I seem to have found a way to have a permanent roadblock in that process that stops me when I hear myself trying to demonize someone. Anyone, really. And I'm learning not to complain, recognizing the tone. I'm not a complainer! My problems are real, just like everyone's.

I can't help myself from seeing through people's actions to getting a glimmer of the deep needs that drive them. I don't know about you, but for me the human condition is terrifying. I am a single person with one child who is just on the verge of getting on his feet, as I am just on the verge of getting social security (the pittance I will receive as a self-employed under-producer.) My Mom is almost 86...she can't take care of me. Nobody can take care of me but me. I can't really afford to access that terror. I have to pretend it isn't there, and I see so many people operating out of that deep fear, and losing the ability to pretend. They're acting out.

The International Movement for Social Justice comes from the surfacing of that terror, as it becomes something that is too costly, economically and socially, and emotionally, to ignore. I think I feel scared, when I have a warm home I can afford, a car that I can move into if it gets that bad, and still a few options to increase my security and ease. I'm in really good shape for someone whose income is in the bottom few percent. I don't live like I am at the bottom, thanks mostly to the generosity of others. My customers are kind and giving people and my printing clients are loyal and accommodating. I am lucky enough to have had the space to develop some useful skills and my Mom instilled some great values in me that keep me afloat and swimming. So if I feel scared, I can certainly see why others do.

I grew up in a gentler time, when there were not so many terrified and desperate people. In my twenties I participated in another movement for social justice and peace, and it changed me in ways that shaped my life in a loving, giving, peaceful and positive form. I've never lost that ethic, that we are in this together and we all have to respect and assist one another in getting to a better place, that peace and justice are our over-reaching goals, and we are on an upward spiral to a clearer consciousness.

So when I sense the fears and desperation that drive negative behaviors, I am able to forgive most people for their transgressions, even while they vex me and cause me to change my direction. I seem to almost always be able to push past my initial defensive reaction (which almost always comes up) and ask myself why that person would do or say such a thing.

And I see that it is almost always some fear or insecurity within them, some affliction that is crying out to be comforted. Most times the person isn't even aware of it. I'm not psychic, I just can recognize these very common conditions and empathize a bit. I'm in the 99% of us who have felt pain. I don't want to add to anyone else's, no matter what they are seeming to do to me.

It's not about me. That is my advice to any of you who are having a hard time and wanting to consult the oracle (thanks, Lynn, for the undeserved title, which amuses me). It's not about you!

You are doing the best you can. You are doing many things in stellar, shining ways that maybe aren't even recognized. You might not get rewarded, but it is not because you don't deserve to be. Your chance may yet come to feel that momentary satisfaction of doing things right.

It is rare to feel that all is right with the world. Yet, it is, on some level we may not even have emotional access to. This is our world, and we are all constantly working to improve upon it. We are all doing our part.

If you don't feel good, you can't do your best work. Feel good. Keep on that sunny side.

I was complaining to my guru/hairdresser Jan my feelings that I shouldn't even be displaying my "We are the 99%" shirts because the tide of public opinion has shifted and it is probably hurting my sales. She stopped me and mentioned that she has not watched TV in many months, and that she totally disagreed with me that the tide has turned. I had unconsciously, in fear, bought into the dominant paradigm promoted by the corporate media. And I think she is correct.

The changes brought by the Occupy movement will last for years and will be subtle, essential changes in how the world operates. We'll take them for granted just like we took for granted the hippie movement that brought forward the craft markets and buy local campaigns, the local farm networks and all of the social upheaval that brought us the freedom to create and control our lives in both big and small ways. People feared and hated the hippies and still do. That didn't stop the change.

People hate and fear what makes them think and step out of their delusions. They show their insecurity and try to blame and demonize to make themselves feel more powerful. Pay no attention to the illusions they project. You can read those letters to the editor and see how limited the thinking is. You can hear the underlying desperation that wants to kill the messengers.

Don't submit to your fears. Operate from love. Love this day, this fog, the hungry and desperate squirrel that eats all the seed before the spotted towhee can get any. Love the vendor who stole your idea and ran with it. Love the person who couldn't see out of their own little box and recognize you as you want to be seen. Challenge yourself to expand your notion of love, and let it push aside your fears.

Try to laugh. Cry a little if it helps, work harder if you enjoy working. Take a walk. Go to bed early with a book you've been meaning to get to. Love your dumpy body that has gotten you so far. Forgive your annoying partner who keeps doing that annoying thing when you've told them a million times.

Practice peace. Keep it simple. And to all those who didn't buy my stuff because they stayed home and made gifts for their loved ones, thank you. You are doing it right, too. You don't owe me a thing. I'm looking at the big picture, and I like the changes that are pushing through the fears with honesty and patience.

I'm going to keep doing what I do as long as I get to. I'm going to keep my goal in mind, which is to not make my problems other people's problems. I'm just a speck on a spot in a big, swirling universe. Wave when you see me twirl by, trailing Jell-O in my wake.

And if I don't wave back, maybe I was just distracted by something shiny. It's pretty shiny this time of year. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.

What a weekend!

Definitely the high point of this weekend at Holiday Market was the awarding of the Beth Little Micro-Enterprise Award to Beth, via our beloved Mayor Kitty Piercy. This was Colleen's wonderful idea and many, many people from Saturday Market wanted this to happen to let Beth know how much we appreciate her dedication. Members Nancy Barry and Ann Schwartz crafted the award, and it was a moment of tears and pride in the middle of a rocking Saturday. Thanks a million, Beth.



I always buy things from my fellows but last night I most thoroughly enjoyed my new shoes by the master shoemaker, Bob Walling. They are so comfortable I will be wearing them nearly all the time. I got them for indoor shoes, although they would be fine outdoors as well. When he pulled the bright green ones off the shelf and they fit me, the decision was made.

My taste treat among many was the most exquisite ice cream I have ever eaten, from Red Wagon Creamery. All of their flavors have been wonderful surprises but the Nutty as a Fruitcake was divine. I can't even describe how perfectly it fit my tastes. Succulent moist fruit and toasted nuts and just enough ice cream to hold it all together.

Lots of things are tasty at the Market, and I could mention more, such as George's candies, Zoe's cupcakes and fruitcake, the apricot scones, the butternut squash quesadillas, and the frozen cherries and other fruits from Hentze's at the farmers market, as well as the potatoes I got from Hayhurst Organic Farm. They have narcissus too, which I loved last winter. I love Kasey's heritage beans and popcorn, and all the carefully displayed fruits and vegetables from Grateful Harvest. Shari's cheeses, all of the nuts and dried fruits, cranberries...we are so lucky to have these hard-working farmers and producers in our midst.

I got kiwis from Linda Williams and put them in this bowl by her neighbor Susan Fishel. I have collected so many items from the Holiday and Saturday Markets that it would take several posts to honor all of them. I have many cards from Catherine Emlen, Tim Giraudier, Tim Fox, Erna Gilbertson, and Nancy Bright, and will be sending some of them out this week if I can make myself part from them. I have wonderful earrings from my neighbors Angie Harrison and Sue Hunnel, Gila Fox, Jeff Allen, and Amanda Finegold, and of course the innovative designs of Brandi Crye. Others I am forgetting for sure, but they all have a place in my heart.

I can't even list all of the things I love from my fellows. Bowls from Annie Heron and Linda again, and aprons from Anna Lawrence that I both own and covet. I have and use so many of the handmade products from my friends and Market family.

I have one of Willy and Janey's lamps (thank you Willy.) I have lots of pottery from Frank Gosar and Alex Lanham. Picture frames from Bill, things in my windows from Nancy Barry and Dave Winship and Michael Bertotti and tuna and salmon from Sally and her family of fisherpeople. Holy Donuts! Ritta's quesadillas, Dave's fantastic Oatmeal Fantasy cookies and his expresso shots, Colleen and Dana's artistry in desserts. PadThai from the master, Saman.

Pretty much everything I consume is sourced from the fine artists I am proud to accompany through this life, and I haven't set foot in a mall or superstore in years. My downtown stores such as the Kiva and other Unique Eugene businesses supply me...if I can't find it downtown I will sometimes go as far as BiMart. I have it so good.

The abundance in my life is astounding and I will try to take a few moments today to just appreciate that. I lack nothing. I had such wonderful moments packed into two hard-working days. I hope I give back just a piece of such goodness to all of those who give to me.

My sweet story was the patient, slow transaction with Katherine Gorman and her mother-in-law, who bought "We are the 99%" t-shirts for local activist Roscoe Caron. They have supported my retail activism for decades and it was validation and reward. Thank you everyone.

There are so many more...find them for yourselves, soon! One more weekend, and then the three-day that leads up to the ending, and then you might not see us for three months as we hide out in our studios and work off the ice cream and candy, eat bean soup and baked potatoes, and finish up all that squash we collected. Don't miss out!

Survived the Three Day

It might sound wimpy but three days of retail in a row are hard on us. It's a lot of smiling. There is also a lot of down time that still requires alertness. Waiting for customers, we get tempted into the aisles where we collect and trade gripes and successes. We dance and joke and prank each other constantly throughout the weekends, and once in a while (that's an understatement) someone loses perspective.

I do, anyway. I forget to keep the big picture in mind and get obsessed by some detail. A few of us spent a few hours being maddened again by the OCF fee increase. We plotted but of course don't really feel like we can do anything about it. It's aggravating to not feel a part of an organization like that. We need to work on it. I feel the most effective course is to continue to articulate our positions and continue trying to find the us and be part of it. We need to listen to our excuses and prod ourselves to be persistent for change. It's a big complicated group of people but each individual is approachable, and I truly believe each one has good intentions for the whole. People are much less selfish than we are inclined to believe.

Remembering that each individual can be addressed in person and thoughtfully is one of my goals. Whenever I see everyone as a group that can be categorized I make mistakes. There is almost never total agreement at a meeting or on a policy. That's one reason that in Market business we make a lot of exceptions to policy, that we emphasize what we do in practice rather than stick resolutely to our rules. The rules are guidelines to refer to when we are not sure what to do. It should always be more important to look at the individual, ask questions to find out why they do what they do, and try to find ways to accommodate the individual.

Sometimes they actually have a disability we don't know about, or a perfectly good reason for their actions or words that we have failed to hear or fully understand. We almost always need more information to make good decisions. That is why we try hard to do our business in the meetings, in the larger groups, with the principals in attendance, or at least with their communication in place. We have a lot of divergent thinkers in our groups, so we need to get together, share our viewpoints, and discuss things to make good solid decisions. We need to take the time to get the full information, and to tease out our assumptions and opinions from the actual facts.

I'm glad people think about things outside the meetings, and I hope they work on themselves to know when they are using drama or forgetting to examine their assumptions before they extend themselves with actions. I know for sure that I do not make good decisions when I am tired, distracted, and busy. I don't like to get all up in my passion and desire for justice and consistency and forget to think about where it all might lead. What is my goal? If it is just to vent my frustration or find control in my insecurity, I am glad when I kept things to myself while they resolved in my subconscious or wherever. Time helps, and it helps to step away from the problem.

We get really wrapped up in Holiday Market, and we don't even look outside our aisles sometimes. We get offended by things that we might not even notice outdoors or in the offseason. It all seems so big and essential.

I know most of us need every dollar we earn there. On top of the regular family stress and holiday busyness, we worry about how we will make it through the winter. We worry about people we are noticing more...are they sick? Do they have debt they can't manage? Are they drifting into irrationality? We maybe pay a little too much attention to each other in the routine of our comings and goings. I hear people saying "She doesn't like me" or complaining about something someone "always does." I hear intolerance and frustration. I hear the self-centeredness of forgetting I am a speck on a spot on a flea on a fly on a wart on a frog on a bump on a log in a hole in the bottom of the sea (to quote my favorite Dad song as a kid.)

It's not all about me! I have to tell myself that over and over. I may not be right. I may not be seeing what I think I see. Reality is slippery.

So keep that in mind, everyone, and give yourself a break. Give each other breaks. What may seem vitally important one moment may be laughable soon. Be patient. Be kind.

No one is in charge of our world. Each of us does our part. We do it together. We do it best together, in the same room, caring for each other.

We don't want to cause damage. Anger and intolerance cause damage. Acting rashly without thinking things through causes damage. At the last Board meeting, one potential new Board member went away shocked, I think, and we all went home with a small dent in our hearts from the anger expressed, as brief as it was. We want, above all, to be gentle and nurturing with each other so that we all can keep our fragile blossoms open.

It is seldom necessary in our world to take a hard line and be inflexible. Let's remember to take our time. We have our annual meeting this Sunday, and Beth is charged with summing it all up, this fractious and worrisome year, and putting it in perspective for us. Fortunately she has the skills to do that. We are still on the same journey, just pausing for a moment to look around.

It is an opportunity to celebrate, congratulate ourselves, and to see where we want to make adjustments. We each have our areas. I asked Beth to mention Tuesday Market, which is important to me. I'm guessing each participant brought something to her in that way, asking her to start or continue the process of refinement in a way that seems essential to them. She might not. There are a lot of areas in which we will have to work this coming year. We can only do so much if we want to do it well.

We want to do it well. It's not about us. We are here today but we will be gone on some coming tomorrow, and someone else will be in our space. I want Saturday Market to thrive for them. I want "us" to be here in fifty years, still in our niche, still essential to our members and our public. I want us to be careful.

And I really, really, really want us to be kind. This is the most gentle business network in the universe. That is important to me. We are all fragile, and any one of us could fall and knock over someone else. Being strong also requires being sensitive.

Let us not model any of the worst that we observe about the mainstream culture. Let us be ourselves and know what is best for us. Let us listen to our elders and our children and make wise, slow decisions that work for everyone. Let us put aside our passions and relax together.

We can do it. We can do it well. Just slow down and see everyone else gathered around. Be calm. Speak softly.

Get some sleep. Take a walk. Have some time off. Feel the love. Enjoy the abundance, and trust in the sufficiency. Everything is going to be all right.

And a special thanks to the musicians of Sunday, particularly Rob Tobias, for the thoughtful, uplifting energy that sustained and inspired us. I needed the Redemption Song.

I need you people. I'll be there for you, and I'll try to remember that you are there for me.

One More Time

We launched the Holiday Market, once again. As a veteran of every HM day way back to when it was one weekend where we made as much as we did in six weeks of the previous outdoor incarnations, all the two-week every day Dicken's Fairs, all those times when we hovered over our propane heaters wringing our hands in the snow and wind, kicking ourselves for our optimism, I can really see exactly what we have created.

The gathering indoors frees us up to enjoy ourselves so much. We go from our tightened, miserable days in the cold rain into the sparkly, warm interior, with all of its leisure and intimacy. This year I noticed the emotional release of the safety, the smoothness, the new mix of neighbors, the newbies, the lovely supportive customers who come to look at every little thing and delight with us in the blossoming of our amazing creativity. We worked hard. We had fun!

For me this is entirely due to our collective years of experiment and experience. Staff has the systems down. So many thousand decisions are made on the basis of the previous decades, knowing what doesn't work and what rewards, what stops the flow and what enhances it. The Holiday Market committee knows what to do when. Each year Beth and her management team refine procedures to embrace the new wrinkles like where the forks will be washed and what the farmers and Fairgrounds will do. Each set-up day we all lug our many loads in and arrange our many enticing wares and we gather in a big circle and eat three turkeys and lots of casseroles and get more and more comfortable in our giant, warm family.

Here on the first Monday after, I find myself full of joy, not tired and cranky. Sales could have been better, but now I see clearly that the first weekend is mostly the surveyors, people who want to see everything, don't want to miss those new vendors who only get in on the first weekend, those exceptional products that will sell quickly as the wonders that they are. We get the curious who have never been there. We get the Picadilly crowd who want hats for hunters (or blank ones) and are a bit afraid of some of us. Plenty of people took the opportunity to select from the best and take our "stuff" home. I no longer worry about not being successful there. That seems to be something we can now rely on, knock on wood just to be safe.

I used to get all conflicted about Buy Nothing Day. I'm not really a consumer, so I always wonder why I can trust so much in spreading out my consumables and having them convert to cash. I wouldn't afford some of my stuff, or that of my fellows. I might not even "see" it, in my lack of experience with the nuances of its creation and the trials that result in its display. Why do I feel so much more satisfied so early this year? What is different?

One thing is Facebook. Never before has it been so easy to share myself through photos of my work, and to visibly increase my network of friends (nevermind that lots of them are just Facebook friends, not necessarily the heart kind---sometimes they convert nicely). There is a sense of unlimited potential when friends of my brother in Australia can read my words and I can see that a post of mine can have hundreds of postviews. It's like having a personal ad agency, and a collective one with my people. We can promote each other with a click. There is always a new opportunity to do one more little thing to boost my presence in the world.

A second improvement is the strength of community we have gained this year through difficulty and adversity. From the tragedies of the winter through the struggles with our neighbors on the Park Blocks and all the way to my secretarial position which encourages me to make gestures of appreciation on the part of my organization to those who have experienced loss, I feel much more connected. I don't come and mount my 8x8 and go home alone. Every time I show up at the Park Blocks or the Fairgrounds I get a little tug in my heart from someone. I see people who have lost husbands or are struggling with medical crises or are riding the edge of functionality and I have been able to open my heart and listen and give. It adds to my joy to reach out, and to concentrate on the abundance of support instead of the scarcity. I see many "ordinary heroes" who give without question, who rise above pain and suffering to provide hope and sustenance. I enjoy offering help and playing with little kids and commiserating with anyone who asks for commiseration.

Occupy Eugene and the Movement has refreshed my hope for big change. I love it and it's brilliant, clunky process and have been energized by the terrible beauty of shining a light on what is wrong with the aim of finding what can be fixed. I see Jain and Vicki and those from my generation with our gentle wisdom, and Sam and Rob and Alley and many people I don't even know with their passion and emotional depth and innovative imagination and I see the real strength of thoughtful analysis and practiced listening skills. I see the way we continue to build on the foundation laid by changers from centuries ago, people who can't help themselves when they see wrong thinking. The fact that this evolution IS televised is the most wonderful aspect for me. I can watch the livestream of almost anywhere and see for myself what is true and what is the diabolical strategy of those who want to derail and destroy. It has never been so easy to find the truth before. I don't have to buy the marketing and the spin. I can do what I can without fear of hurting myself, which allows me to take each step of involvement at my own pace. I can see what others are doing and how they are doing it. I am inspired daily and my cynicism is at bay.

I have always wanted to do the t-shirt "Your cynicism will not protect you" but it's one of those that wouldn't sell, and would just puzzle people. I have enough products that don't sell. But now that I have my blog, I can throw these ideas out there into the tubes and I find that just as satisfying, maybe more satisfying, than making protest shirts. The current meme of putting the pepper-spraying cop into historical works of art is just cracking me up, and getting to see the brilliant cardboard signs from around the world reminds me that we are smart. People are brilliant, stellar, thoughtful and full of compassion. Just give us an opportunity to express ourselves, and stand back. On some levels, there is nothing wrong with this world, at all.

And the last thing that I see as different, which is a big subject which would lead to many blog posts and fascinate me, at least, is that I have Jell-O Art on my head when I walk through my world. All of a sudden I walk down the hall and people are staring at me in wonder. They stop me and ask about it. They are amazed with me at the magic of it. Every outfit I wear is enhanced by it. I used to dress up rather reluctantly for Holiday Market, but now it is effortless, and I understand a little more the good side of the attention women get for being attractive, which is something that usually disturbs me. Jell-O gives it just the right twist to taste delicious to me.

One of my dear friends came and looked at each piece and added several items to her art collection. She is a person who sized her life down to essentials and controlled her collections to only what she found meaningful and loveable, and to have her appreciation is gratifying. I love explaining it to people, even when they have that certain measure of disbelief and subtly back away. I feel so lucky to have something great to share, something no one has seen before, or seen too much of (yet.)

The silly, the inspirational, the intelligent, the emotional, the overwhelming, the stuff that cuts to the heart. It's all there, at the Holiday Market this year. As an organization, and in my personal efforts, we're in the refinement stage. It just gets more beautiful, more lubricated, more accessible, and more precious every moment. It's emphemeral, it's elusive, and it's priceless.

And we all get to share it. What a time to be alive.

So I'm thinking this will be the year when I don't get exhausted, or sick, or tired of everything. I won't hate all people on Christmas Eve when my memories collide with my disappointment and emptiness. I won't despair about my deprivation and forget to notice my sufficiency and abundance. What I have is enough. What I can see and touch is everything.

Whose world? Our world. Welcome to it. Please make it your own.

Tis the season

It's beginning to be the Holiday Season (we had a sax player in Santa hat playing carols on the corner, in the rain on Saturday) but for those of us who are getting ready for Holiday Market, it's the season of irrationality and stress.

We're over-extended, with lots of cash tied up in inventory, lots of piles of products to finish, lots of new ideas for display and arrangement nagging at us that we can't really do anything about until we get into the building at the Fairgrounds. Saturday was cold and wet, and miserable, though most of us sold a few things, had a few laughs, and made it through the day without too much damage.

Lots of us stayed home. My body wanted to stay home but my loyalty won out. If Market is going to sponsor an event for me, I'm going. There was always a hot bath and a rest and a Sunday at the end of my day (even an extra hour of it) so I felt I could make it. Also I wore three pairs of socks, four jackets, rain pants, and had dry socks just in case. I took no chances. Most of my products stayed in the realm of damp and didn't get actually wet.

Raven was back, so the neighborhood felt somewhat normal, and there were many nice marchers on the scene to appreciate us and help us feel a part of the movement, even though we had to yell from across the street. There were shoppers, there were people buying Christmas presents and people just discovering Saturday Market. Except for the wet and cold part it was a pretty good day. Next week will have that nostalgic feeling of the last Market of the year on the blocks, and I'll be there, no matter what the weather promises. I'm tough.

But being tough this time of year takes some new thinking patterns. I was going over my normal lists of reasons the Holiday season disappoints and distresses me, thinking of writing letters and blogs and all of the things I usually do to work out the angst, when I started reading a book about brain biology and realized that new thinking will help me.

My usual pattern of letting my family know about my distress is actually a way of making my problems their problems, and I'm guessing they already know all about mine and might just have a few of their own to deal with. So one thing I can do is not make my problems anyone else's problems. I can just decide what I am doing about showing love and appreciation this year, do those things, and let my distress lie in the past where it originates.

Maybe there is really no new distress in my story. I've done awfully well at identifying it and analyzing it for many years, so maybe this year I can push it back into the past. Can't change the past, but I can change the stories I tell myself about it. I know that works.

Money is just not important enough spiritually to let it be the driving force for everything. I can focus on having enough: what I have is enough. I'm doing well. I can be warm and safe and do the things that help me feel warmer and safer. I have lots of dry socks, and I can get my traditional new pair of fleece socks right at the HM and maybe a new hat. You can never have too many warm hats, and maybe it would help me feel warmer if I shared some of the old ones I don't wear with new people. I know lots of people sleeping outside who need more than one hat.

I can focus on what I do like about the Holidays, the foods, the traditions that I enjoy, the warmth of beeswax candles. I like singing carols. I can find more singing opportunities or even get that old piano book out and sit down at the keyboard and see if I can still play. I was looking through my books and found one in which I had written down all of the mandolin tunes I was learning way back in the early 70's, so I could tune up the mandolin and see if my fingers remember any of them. I could treat myself to a uke, which was my first instrument, and find ways to play it, maybe even with some of the plethora of local uke players.

I could work on my tendency to isolate, a little bit at a time. I could isolate less, I could exercise more. I could challenge myself to give a gift to myself, something meaningful, something I could spend the full array of emotions on: the longing, the wishfulness, the fear of not deserving, the fear of not being seen, the disappointment of not being understood, the feeling of emptiness that can come with watching other people give and receive. All the love I tell myself I don't get while ignoring what I do get.

I could easily turn off the TV more often and stop that insidious tendency to compare myself with others, especially others who only exist in advertisements so deviously crafted to ramp up our inadequacies and feelings of deprivation. It is sometimes not enough to intellectually understand this stuff. Sometimes we just have to take actions to counteract.

I've always loved Buy Nothing Day despite the very real conflicts I have with retailing on that day. I could do more to live my ideals, like find the very best sources for my goods, instead of the most convenient, and try to be more comfortable with the contradictions I set up for myself. I might be able to find items made in the USA that aren't dorky (the hats) and overly expensive (those family wage jobs are worth supporting.) I could do myself a big favor and not carry so much inventory.

I've taken steps down these roads, but I can step livelier and challenge myself a little more. I might find that instead of increasing the stress, it makes me feel better. I can practice more kindness and understanding for everyone, including myself.

I can look around and see what is happening, because we who isolate and work too hard tend to forget to do this. Just look around. There is a lot happening, and some of it is amazing.

There is a lot to be thankful for, like good frozen whole wheat pie crusts and friends who actually cook turkeys and put up with our habits of mind without complaint. There's that amazing Harvest Dinner we have on HM set-up day, where we gather to share ourselves in every way. There is the glory and gorgeousness that is the creativity in our locale. Holiday Market is just a little part of it.

There are all of those who love us as we are, support our growth, and hope for the best for us. Sure, the cynic is right that we all act in our own self-interest. But there is a lot more to that story.

Sometimes it is in our self-interest to act in ways that don't connect directly with our narrowest view, but rather see our self-interest in the thriving of everyone in our much broader view. It is in my self-interest that all beings be well. Do your part. Be kind to yourself this time of year, and let that flow outward and onward.

Beautiful Process

Cold cold cold cold cold. I really hate to be cold. I really, really admire all those who hung around the freezing concrete in the river fog last night for the Occupy GA. I watched it in the relative comfort of my home, riveted.

As I said in my last couple of blogs, I had a lot of emotions about the protesting, and decided for that reason (avoiding the adrenaline patterns) that I couldn't participate in person. I feel lame about it, but self-preservation is what it is.

But I'm so grateful that this revolution is being (partially) televised. The GA meeting on Wed. night Oct. 26 was a really compelling example of patient, innovative and creative process. Meetings are hard for many, but I like them. I usually take minutes if possible to keep me in the moment and not feeling bored or impatient. I like the role of recorder and can channel my desire for justice into painting the most accurate picture possible of what happened.

The minutes can't possibly fully illustrate the beautiful moments of a well-run meeting. Last night there were good minutes being posted on the Occupy Eugene Facebook page, as well as a play-by-play thread which included over 1300 comments that helped fill in the gaps from people not speaking clearly and stupid violent ads that would interrupt the livestream. The video was of marginal quality due to the conditions, but it showed enough to get the sense of the crowd's appearance (bundled up) and size. When the vote was taken to see if there was 90% consensus, after there were a couple of immovable blocks, there were over 75 people still there, and it was midnight.

There were two facilitators, and I didn't catch the name of the second (Silver-something), but the young man named Samuel Rutledge was fantastic at responding, hearing subtleties, and coming up with creative ideas to move things along the way the body wanted them to be moved. I know he didn't do it alone, but he was the linchpin or center around which things revolved, and he was amazing. Apparently he has been part of Community Village and I'm sure he has done plenty of other available training, but however he gained his skills, it was impressive how well he used them.

And he didn't make it all about himself, at all. He always kept himself in the position of facilitator (except when we got a glimpse of how this wonderful skill set can affect his wife and children, which must be wonderful and terrible at times.) It was the best TV I've seen in forever.

It makes me want even more to broaden my understanding of consensus and bring it to the decision-making bodies I sit in on. I've always been committed to it but most of my groups have devolved to consensus-seeking, for efficiency I suppose. Possibly it is partly because we didn't keep up with the available tools. The hand signals are new to me, and darned useful. And consensus-seeking is still better than fighting things out in the sad delusion that there are only two sides of a question. Mostly people don't fall into that trap any more, except maybe in bodies that are politically charged and secretly funded by the Koch Bros. (like the County Commissioners?)

Listening! What a thrilling thing to see how simple it can be to allow everyone a voice. Grounding worked well last night too. There was a woman with a singing bowl who would walk around vibing when things got tense, and it really did serve to calm and bring people back to the present moment. It was just lovely.

So they decided where to move, and another chapter opens today for the movement. Even though I am mostly watching, I really appreciate all the very hard work of so many people. There is a lot of passion and energy being channeled into this communication to the world and I am proud of our local groups and their efforts. I hope everyone can continue to take the high road.

It isn't over. There will still be ways to participate and some of them might be easier now. There was a definite feeling of not being safe in that big dark park and there was no way I could go down there. It will be much more approachable now. More power to the people!

Volunteers of America

Rich came by Tuesday and we tried to remember that Jefferson Airplane song. I clearly remember standing on a bed playing air guitar and singing that at the top of my lungs. I was in DC for the seventies revolution, the massive marches, the tear gas. I was in the student strike. But that was then.

Had some further thoughts on my last post, which was essentially whining because not enough people participated in my retail sales experience. I mean, so what? I hate it when I make it all about me not getting what I want. It's an international movement, something giant and meaningful, and I'm all about not getting enough attention. I am of course not the only one in that state.

I've heard that some of the occupiers are not too interested in the seasoned activists from the previous generations. There is probably some of that. I remember when we didn't trust anyone over thirty. That was before we got to thirty ourselves. Now (at 61) I try to trust everyone.

By all indications the movement will indeed move as promised to make way for our little commerce day in the Park. It's the right thing to do. We're pretty on the edge down at Market, with many of us under the poverty level. We created jobs for ourselves in previous recessionary times, and it was a fairly good strategy for keeping busy and not getting thrown out into the streets. It isn't an easy life, but it does have its benefits.

We do depend on retail sales, which is a wide and deep morass of delicate, ephemeral negotiations with strangers and fans that results in us getting money for our efforts (if all goes well.) It's a rare artisan who can sell everything she makes in a timely fashion. One of the reasons I still have a lot of political stuff is that politics doesn't change that much, and some of the items are the same ones I have had for years. Literally the same ones. They go into cardboard boxes and come out later and go back on the shelf. Sometimes I find the old screens on the rack and reprint. That has been the case with the "This Space Not Available for Corporate Advertising" shirt. It's really hard to print on hats but I keep doing it because anti-corporatism hasn't gone out of style. When I first printed it, I was reacting to seeing Camel cigarette wear on everyone, and needed to make a statement. I actually sold quite a few of those shirts to Northern Sun a decade or so ago.

My generation of peaceniks is still current in many ways, and we've been honing our skills. We aren't really old and in the way, so I don't think the disdain of youth is stopping any older people from making a contribution. Mostly folks my age are supporting from what I call the middle distance. The Occupy Eugene page on Facebook has over 2500 friends, but the vast majority of those are not the kind of friends who want to spend the night. We're supporting in theory, maybe with money or food or by pitching in with the chores, maybe just by keeping up.

It's our need for security and stability that causes us to pull back and not throw up a tent and mount our freak flags. I personally find that I have an unfortunate tendency to get triggered by the trauma of that past revolutionary time, so I really can't immerse and keep my life stable. I had a very messy decade in my twenties. Some of it was self-inflicted, but most of it was just a bad set-up for me that I had to roll through and survive. I did of course, but spent most of the next decade trying to find peace in the woods and ignore the Watergate stuff and all that came after. I immersed in work, kept a little part of me expressive in a radical political way, but for the most part became a mother and productive member of society.

Alternative society, though. My family finally found the label of "Voluntary Simplicity" to put on me, which made them much more comfortable than lost soul or hippie or whatever other label they found that fit. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to explain myself, just knew I had found something that worked and stuck with it.

I suppose I am a workaholic if you like that label. I know I use work to substitute for other things in my life that aren't as satisfying. I do probably get too emotionally attached to my work, but it's hard to see how an artist would avoid that. At least I can see the attachment better now and don't fool myself so much about it.

I talked to a fellow fiction writer on Tuesday and he asked me about my writing, which truthfully has mostly consisted of my blogs for quite some time. The fiction I wrote was always very personal, a form of therapy almost where I went over events from my past with the idea of transforming them by rewriting them with honesty and insight and maybe finding out something new for my own progress. It worked, but increased my vulnerability and I have a hard time sharing a lot of it. Publishing it never seemed wise, particularly when I thought about public readings where I figured I would weep on the podium.

So I've had the goal of creating distance in my fiction, which would be a neat trick if you could balance that with the emotional vulnerability that people hunger for in their reading. I try writing with male characters, changing names, etc., but mostly I talk myself out of writing the stuff altogether. Editing the pieces I have written carries the same risk of pain, so I have files and files of unedited novels and stories and essays.

But I'm going to push through that resistance and work on the pieces, and write new ones too. It's vital work for me personally. I'm not very attached to sharing it, but I'm working on that too. I really don't need to fear the exposure. Mostly people my age are ignored or at most, read by people my age. I'm not going to be read much by younger generations unless I manage to learn more about them, to be relevant. I can only do so much of that.

So really, my work does not speak much to this new revolution. Add to that that it is a revolution without so many souvenirs. I read today that most items available in Zuccotti park are for free. The armbands seen here in Eugene are free. It seems somehow inappropriate to sell shirts about this revolution. The new economy is more of an exchange economy. It doesn't really trust money.

So no, I still haven't made the t-shirt. I just don't want to. I'm too conflicted about having to clear the tents off my booth space in order to sell them. I'm too afraid of putting myself into old traumas. I hate fall anyway, don't like to be cold, and just want to stay home and make Jell-O Art Christmas ornaments. I just can't push myself this time of year. When I do, I get irrational and fearful, and this is not the time to add my fears to the piles of fears ready to be set on fire downtown.

It's not just the occupation. There's a lot going on in our city and county. Saturday Market is right in the heart of it, and we are being seen by lots of people as problem solvers and problem creators. It has been the most complicated, difficult year ever. I've written myself into several conundrums and sometimes it has helped, sometimes hurt (me, at least.) Words are powerful.

Believe it or not, in the sixties and seventies we didn't really have t-shirts. The t-shirt used to be underwear, and it was not really until the eighties when they became commercially available decorated wardrobe items. It has been fabulously useful as a vehicle for self-expression, and before the internet was one of the main ways to spread the words, better than posters, better than speeches.

But now it isn't. There are some, mostly black with white toxic PVC-based ink, that are still popular, mostly because they are black. There are the white ones with the transfers or direct-print full-color art that comes directly off the tubes. But the old-style protest shirt, the ones everyone pulls out of their drawers to wear to the protest, are fading away. It's too cold for t-shirts this time of year, as well. Patches to sew onto the backs of jackets are more practical, or the armbands, or the tendency to avoid being a target by not displaying your politics on your person.

There is still a bit of the spray paint/stencil/DIY stuff out there, but of course that is not what I do. So anyway, there are my justifications for not making a shirt this week. Mostly I had other work to do that was more secure, more safe for me. I'm a bit out of the mainstream, by choice. I'll settle into it eventually, maybe even like being on the sidelines. It's hard to maintain that passion and hope for change. It's tough to beat off that cynicism from seeing it all before.

I'm with you, though, people for change. We do need it on so many levels. I'm in the middle distance like the other thousands of FB fans. We do what we can. We hate kicking you out of the park, but property tax bills came this month. We have to cling to the security we created. We're just not twenty anymore. Unlike you, we're gonna die!

But we're clicking Like. The funny thing is, I think everyone might have gone somewhere else on the internet, and we're still on Facebook thinking we're in the center too. Old people are funny. We think it is our world just as much as anyone. I'm standing there across the street, testing the waters to see if it is warm enough for me. I have to. Thanks for doing the hard stuff, kids. Keep up the good work.

Don't mind us over here, we're still doing it. Just a little slower maybe, a little less idealistic, a little less magical. There are ways we can help. Come home and do your laundry, but make sure it is a sunny day, cuz Mom doesn't have a dryer. Can't afford the electricity.

I could always be wrong about the souvenirs though. Come see me if you want to order something, because I could still be swayed. I bought some shirts. I'm just thinking "We are the 99%" because "Mad As Hell" is too inflammatory. But if the consensus is "Mad As Hell," I could be swayed. Bring me your brilliant ideas. I promise to share the money. Cash is still a useful commodity. Those Porta-potties cost $75 a day. We know. We've been paying that bill for forty-some years.

Compassion is the new currency

I felt invisible today. I bought produce from nearly every farmer there. I bought items from two of my fellow SM vendors, plus ice cream, which technically I didn't buy because I had a filled up customer card. I spent about five times as much as I made. No farmers bought from me, no occupiers or occupy supporters bought from me. Friends came to visit, but I saw just as many who avoided my zone completely. I saw lots who didn't cross the street.

Two Market vendors bought from me. I had the same conversation with about a dozen Market vendors: what were the protestors thinking to set up in our space? Did they not know we are part of the 99%, don't they know anything about our needs, don't they care? I assured all of them that we have a most excellent manager who will make sure that we will be in our spaces on Saturday. I assured them that everyone who was speaking for the Occupiers has said they will be leaving the space on Friday. I encouraged everyone to trust and listen and not worry. We are the 99%. The occupiers know this.

Sometimes I think I show up on Tuesdays as a public service. Come see how I express my politics, come see how I live my ideals, come see the wonder of Jell-O Art. But you know what? I'm there to make a living. I'm obviously doing it wrong.

The scenery was different, looking over at the occupation instead of the farmers, but the feeling was the same. I did not matter to anyone, and they would not notice if I wasn't there. I felt strongly today that we needed, as a group, to occupy our own space there, which we revere. We might have done better over with the farmers, but the space they offered us would have our backs to the occupation, and we would have acted as a barrier between the protestors and the farmers. Not the position for us. Instead we faced the occupation and stood there all day with our hearts open.

I know why the occupation wanted to be in that space; it's obvious. For several decades Saturday Market has nurtured a beating heart there in the center of downtown.

When the thousands of marchers filled the west block on Saturday night, it was the velvet embrace of an unstoppable force meeting a gently yielding lover. I slowly relinquished my space, the one I have held all day and all season and all my adult life, to a group I was part of and not part of. I took about twenty hats off my display and gave half to one of the legal team, who thanked me, and laid the other half on the ground about ten feet from my booth. They were immediately grabbed up. I didn't see anyone wearing one of my hats today, but I didn't give them away for any return. It was just spontaneous generosity from a heart filled with joy at the power, and participation the way most of us vendors participate: we give our creations away.

I've always considered myself to be an activist, but it was confusing to feel part of a group that was ignoring me, and worse, waiting for me to get out of the way. The hats disappeared. People tripped on my hat display as they walked through my space, oblivious to my work, not seeing my organized packing as I loaded my awesome human-powered machine. No one had the slightest interest in me. And so it was today.

Yes, a few of the occupiers came over and asked us if we needed help. No, I don't need help to do my job, but thanks for your concern. Do you really want to help? I need customers. Can you help me with that? I need acknowledgement of my lifetime of activism and my generosity of spirit and my tireless pursuit of justice and my dedicated service to my community. Can I get a handshake? Can I get any of you to see me at all? I can see you. Just stand here and look at my stuff for a few minutes. Most of the conversations I did have were about the t-shirt people wanted me to make. At my own expense. At my own risk.

I don't know, we are all so wrapped up in our own importance in this society, caught up in our own ideas. I know I am too. I'm watching the livestream from the distance of the internet. I'm not participating, I'm watching. I'm holding in the middle distance, keeping myself separate, because I don't want to camp out downtown. My back hurts. I'm a Facebook activist. I'm commenting now and then, I'm encouraging. Hell, I told people to shop at Farmers Market. I told people to trust the movement to consider us. I reassured and reassured.

I suppose this is part of the problem, that I did not know how to integrate the confusion I felt Saturday night, being gently occupied, that I did not know how to be both the artisan selling in the public square and the person shifting the square to another purpose. I didn't know today how to be a Saturday Market stalwart and a person looking out for my own financial interests. I expect I would have sold more with my back to the movement, with my heart open to the farmers, who have looked upon me with so much suspicion and even anger in the recent past, but maybe not. There wasn't really a good place for me, so I held down the default, my little bench on the east block.

I would have been better off financially if I had stayed home. I'm having a hard time figuring out what I was doing down there today. I was holding space for my organization, my Market family. My greatest loyalty is there. But my products, which I created to promote social change, to express some of our best collective attitudes toward that purpose, were not useful to the movement. They were not even noticed by the movement. Maybe it is not the same movement.

I have to take responsibility for keeping the occupiers at a bit of a distance. I've been observing, and I walked around a little yesterday, but I'm not involved. Many people have asked me to make a t-shirt for the movement, and presumably a few of them would buy one if I had done so. But I'm broke right now, in debt right now, and I have a lot of political t-shirts and hats already. People aren't buying those, so I don't think I'll throw more money at that target. I don't need more shirts to give away.

People in the movement don't have money. It's about economic insecurity, about how to get out of this pit we have been thrown into by the 1% who use us and manipulate us and toss us aside. It's about how to combat this, how to not get defeated by it, how to collectively survive and thrive despite the oppression. I have always prided myself on doing my part. I have always put my own needs aside to some degree to serve my community, to promote security and prosperity and what is right and good. My currency has been compassion for some time now. I noticed this during the Bush "elections", when people were so fearful it seemed like they couldn't be any more scared. I was happy to stand on the corner telling everyone it would be all right. They were happy to believe me, though of course it has not been all right and most of my hope and trust were misplaced.

I've been happy to use my listening skills and my counseling skills and my writing skills to do everything I can to help out. That's what people do, they bring their skills and assets to share, they pitch in. I always pitch in. I thought by going today I was making a contribution, and envisioned dozens of movement supporters supporting me, someone with something practical to contribute. Who doesn't need a hat with an encouraging slogan on it? Fear less. Practice peace.

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm being selfish. Maybe I'm scared of poverty and the future for a little old woman. Maybe I got my expectations of the movement up a little too high, remembering the exhilaration of being part of the solution, the fun that protests are, the great energy that comes from standing together and shouting together and being a part of something big and important.

I guess I could have abandoned my booth on Saturday and hollered for awhile, marched for awhile, but I am more responsible than that. I had a big workday and did my work. On the way home I passed the OCF annual meeting, where my outrage and woundedness needed to be expressed, where I don't feel treasured and I don't feel my other membership organization sees me or has compassion for me. I would have stopped, but I had just worked a fourteen hour day and still had an hour of unloading to do. I didn't engage there either.

So I'm just not part of the solution today. I'm part of the disenfranchised, the disaffected, the discouraged. I'm sitting here, staying up too late, trying to find some clarity for myself.

I'm overwhelmed about all the things that need fixing due to our self-absorption as a people, our lack of understanding of what compassion looks like, our self-centered obsession with what we think is the only important thing, what we ourselves are doing. I'm just as guilty of it as anyone. I'm just as bereft of solutions, as empty of ideas as the next person.

I'm glad people are trying, I really am. I think there are many earnest people who are losing sleep right now trying to find solutions to giant and weighty problems. I love consensus and working on privilege and learning compassionate problem-solving and crisis intervention and I'm very glad people are practicing this kind of peace downtown in the place where I keep my heart, opening and reopening it every Saturday and Tuesday. I hope they feel that heart there and keep it safe, show it reverence and feed it their passion and hope.

I expect to trundle my wares down there again this week and have my clean old space ready for me, to do my work some more. I trust in all of those people to work for justice for me as well as all the rest of us. I know their intentions are good.

But if compassion is our currency, we have to expand our understanding of that word a thousand fold. We have to get out of our own worlds where our own needs are paramount and really look at each other, really see each other. I did not experience that today. I brought home a lot of food, but I did not get fed. I saw a lot of difficulty and not the same amount of humor and ease. I saw some giving but more expecting. I saw raw needs, but not needs getting filled.

But there's always tomorrow. Yesterday's gone. Today's gone too. I'll try sleep.

T-shirts for change

After three days of pulling I've declared provisional victory over the ivy. It will be back, but right now there is none where there was tons of it. Unfortunately most of it had to go in plastic bags and though I have been assured that the yard waste collectors empty the bags, I have to assume they will then throw them away. Sorry. So hard to be a purist.

Best news of the day was the new movement to dress up the protestors in urban camouflage, i.e. business suits. I've been trying to think of a t-shirt idea that I could whip up when I get back to town, to sell to raise money to donate to the protest. I'm not going to go down and live in a tent, just can't do it for several reasons. But I do certainly want to do something. Reposting things on FB is getting old. Most of my friends on there share my politics so they already know this stuff.

So, t-shirt brainstorm. We're at the bottom looking up. We just want to earn. Listen to your children. Be part of the solution. Maybe a fake business suit-looking thing with something cute on the back.

I dunno, not getting anywhere. It has to be funny and clever and have something new to say. I hold my t-shirts to a high standard. And I'm not so sure it will sell. Most of the political stuff I've done in the past few years has ended up being given away. Need another hippie shirt. Get your boat this time hippie? Those tents are going to be floating in Eugene. And those shirts aren't made in the USA, folks. They might just be part of the problem.

I've been pre-occupied today with my feelings about the Fair fee increase specifically the parking sticker inequity. I really don't want to feel the us and them, but why do I and my workers have to pay $20 and the other workers pay $10? It makes no sense. We are all working as hard as we can, as far as I can see. We are all serving each other and the public. Yes, I'm making a living there, so I might go home with more money than I arrived there with, but I also have a lot of giant bills to pay when I get home.

It's a huge effort and risk to mount that show. My fees amount to $300 per public day. That is a really expensive show in my world. All of my success is due to me being on it every waking minute, and also professional and efficient in my efforts so that my customers are satisfied and my responsibilities are fulfilled. I do very much appreciate the efforts of the volunteers and see that some of what they do is for me: the security keeps me safe from threat and theft, the traffic helps me not waste a lot of time getting in and out, all the staff and coordination supports what I am doing there.

But I also support them. I bring wonderful items to entice and satisfy the public. I create a big part of the draw that builds the gate income. You can't really separate things and say one of us is more essential or more deserving than another one. So why do we not strive for more equality in our membership?

We don't seem to have this problem at Market, maybe because all of our volunteers are also vendors. We (or at least I) trust our Budget committee and they seldom levy additional fees on me. They always look to other ways to make their decisions to avoid fee increases. Our percentage fees ensure that we all pay the same proportion of our income, and when I do well I'm happy to help Market do well. The Fair did well this year, so why do I have to pay more?

I read through the meeting minutes and there were lots of sensible comments and a few proposed compromises, but the vote was taken and the fee increase was passed. Nothing to do about it now but cope. I can theoretically cut workers (though I can't, since we are all working as hard as we can) or ask them to pay for their own parking passes or something. I'm not going to do that. My workers are practically volunteers as it is. I can pass the costs on in increased prices, but I have seen the public every week this year and they do not have money. That will likely result in less income rather than more.

Occupy Main Camp? Not that funny, and I doubt the spotted towhees will care one whit if I sit out there a little longer. The Fair isn't exactly a greedy corporation even though I would like to see them trying a little harder to have more compassion for my struggle to survive.

I tried this year to shift my thinking by getting more involved. I volunteered for the Fair, specifically the Scribe Tribe, people who take minutes at committee meetings. This was really good for me. I got a much better idea of how the committees function, and paid a lot more attention to the people who do the work and what they do. I renewed my faith in what good, well-intentioned people we are. I felt a greater sense of belonging. I consider just about everyone a conscientious, conscious member of my fair family. I felt a little reciprocation. At least a few people learned my name.

But truthfully, I also noticed that these people were generally not really supportive of me. They passed by quickly if they passed by my booth at all. I heard a lot of volunteers bragging this year about how well they managed to stay out of the eight during the day. Excuse me? Is the eight during the day not the Fair? Why don't they participate in that? How come they don't buy my stuff, or even look at it (with some notable exceptions who have always been very supportive of the Market and even me in particular)? Is it me? Am I just not seeing that they do buy my stuff? I hope so.

It seems like we're having several parallel events at the same time. There's the craft fair, and the shows, and the night scene that the young people dominate, and there's the pre-fair that we all know is a really great time and a lot of sweaty work. It all happens together but it isn't really happening together.

So we can work on that. I will offer to not write a complaining letter to the FFN this year about the fees. I said it all last year anyway, to little response. I will pay the fees and not make the t-shirt with the cynical response (actually, no promises there. I have a backlog of funny and cynical ideas and I might not be able to resist come June). I will continue to volunteer (though I dropped one committee, regretfully, mostly because I can only type so much and I need to concentrate on typing things that make money for me). I will continue to try to think the best of everyone and give them the benefit of the doubt and strive for mutual understanding and common ground. We are all working hard for a valuable purpose.

I'll try not to be negative about the community center plan, though I may continue to insist that the funds for it come from fundraising and not the vendors. I'm not much of a visionary and I want to support those who are. When it is built we will probably all love it and find it useful. I certainly hope so.

But if we are really in this together and all that, I would like to see some of the visible fair volunteers come to support me and my fellow vendors this year at the Holiday Market, or maybe even on the Park Blocks in these coming dark and wet days. I'd like them to speak up about our common experiences and solidify our relationships. Purchases aren't really as necessary as presences. Let's find more ways to collaborate. Let's find more ways to love each other and include each other in our thinking.

We have a little tiny and wonderful world in Eugene/Veneta. We are really lucky that we made it that way and protected it and are living in it. It isn't perfect. But if just one volunteer comes and buys one of my $20 items, someone who has not done that before, I will use the money to buy one of my expensive parking passes and feel better. I promise to feel better about it. I do not want to feel resentful and petty.

Let's save our animosity for the real enemies. You can find lots about them on FB right now, thanks to this new revolution. Let's concentrate on big justice, and be kind to each other.

Wow, this is not how I thought this blog would go. All the way from occupy Main Camp to maybe I'll drop in there and check out that Hospitality service next fair. I hear it is for us boothpeople too. It might be quite the heartwarming time to go down there and get a snack and a drink of something cold and feel part of the family.

Dang, next thing you know I'll be running for that Board myself. Then I'll have to put myself on the line and make those hard decisions and get all that criticism. That'll show me.

Monopoly

The only art class I ever took was a calligraphy class at Cooper's Union in 1973, which probably lasted a month or two at most. I spent some time in 1974 at my Mom's house, where my old room had been improved by a big old worktable that I settled into with my art supplies and unrealistic notions about life and art.

What a wonderful Mom I have to let me have some artistic space in my life at that time to explore and play. She paid me to do her housework and cook for my remaining siblings while she worked at an investment firm.



I practiced calligraphy with various projects, this being one I finished. I gave it to one of my sisters who has had it in her attic all this time.


I lettered each one of these cards, and each piece of money one by one.

I painted the deeds and properties with gouache and used speedball points and India ink and some rulers and ruling pens I had gotten from my Uncle Ed. These were the kinds of pens that you filled a little reservoir with ink through an eye dropper.

I don't believe I had any technical pens at the time though the lack of blots and skips makes me think perhaps I did.

As you can see I lettered out the rules book and although there are a few corrections on the board it is mostly perfect in my primitive little twenty-four-year-old's style. I never got much better at lettering than that.


I constructed the box (unfortunately with rubber cement) and used my charm bracelet for the game pieces, and some stuff from the hardware store.



Even I find this piece of my archives amazing. She brought it over today saying we should sell it for a million dollars and maybe we might sell it, but it is one of a kind for sure and might only be worth a lot when I get more famous as an outsider artist, or when my collection is put together in a big truck to take to the dump.












I could get a few bucks for it at a garage sale, I'll bet. Except we're keeping it.

The Whole World is Working

What do we want? RESPECT! When do we want it? We've always wanted it, all of us. Since Day One.

I'm loving the growing Occupy protests and how they are serving to get the issues articulated and opened up and the people realizing that we are so much more alike than different. Today's protesters (which of course include many of yesterday's) are so much better (aided by FB and such) at expressing the common ground. The signs are so intelligent and thought-provoking. It's the public square where the panel discussion is taking place, with everyone participating. And the whole world is involved, not just watching.

Expressing ourselves is so vital, and we get so frustrated and isolated when we have no way to do that. We need to know that not only are 99% of us in the same boat, it isn't really sinking as fast as we thought. Lots of people are working to keep us all afloat! I have great hope that many things will improve so that political realities realign with actual domestic realities for so many.

And hope is really important in times of difficulty. I'm glad that I can still access it through the crust of cynicism I tend to wear to protect me from pain. But Naomi Klein just said that cynicism is a luxury we can't afford right now. So I'm brushing off the crust.

I spent the day yesterday working for my Mom. We put preservative on her deck, which didn't go so well since it didn't dry and we will probably have to wipe it off today. Oh well, one step forward and two steps back. I'm charged with her yardwork. Fortunately the weather is gorgeous, summery. Our conversation:

"I'm going to get the ivy away from the foundation, Mom. You're not supposed to grow English ivy, invasive species, you know." Me being the condescending environmentalist as usual.

"I've been working to get rid of that ivy since Day One." She's lived in this house for 55 years. So I guess we can see who is winning. It's on three sides of the house. She can't keep up with it.

Ivy is tenacious and persistent and you can manage it but it takes major efforts and invasive techniques to eradicate it, so you usually don't. I pulled a ton of it out and it looks good today but it's still there and will probably be there for another lifetime. It's just trying to survive and get its needs met.

I'm always looking for metaphors and there it was. If you can be tenacious and persistent you are a match for the invasive species of the world but at best you can manage them, so don't get too attached to your particular outcome. And if you think it is a battle, be prepared for defeat. Better to think of it as gardening, a lifetime of care and tending that results in moments of beauty and grace and clear common ground, but mostly a lifetime of something to do that gives you the illusion of control and practice at cooperation. And is a bunch of work you might rather not do, but you have to do it, or the stuff will start to get on your neighbor's house and they will have to deal with it. They might hold that against you.

Everybody is trying to get their needs met. I'm talking about Saturday Market and our home on the Park Blocks, and the difficult year we have had with all of our neighbors trying to tend their own gardens and survive and thrive. There has been a lot of juggling and a lot of listening a quite a few demonstrations of desperation and utter confusion. Things that have gone right have been a clarification of who we are and what we are doing together, and what we want. We've unified and opened our hearts and done a lot of thinking about the past and future and our values and plans and strengths and vulnerabilities.

We want respect for what we have built. If you are going to erode our foundation and act like a weed upon our landscape, we're going to be inclined to want to manage that. We might try a few things that are a little harsh and there might be unanticipated consequences. When we get in the same room and talk it through, go think some more, and talk it through again, we do pretty well. We can see our limits and expectations and we've increased our mutual trust and understanding.

That's internally. Externally we have not done as well, although we are not finished. We've avoided the public forum, preferring to keep fairly quiet and work carefully so we don't get boxed in. We think of ourselves as a transparent organization, in that our meetings are public and we don't do secret agenda stuff and we don't lie. We try for courage. If you can't say it in public, you probably shouldn't say it. If you can't allow yourself to be open to being wrong, or needing more information, if you get defensive and fearful, it might turn things into a conflict or it might spread the problem to even more of your gardens and compromise even more of your beautiful flowers or those of your neighborhood. That isn't fair.

And if you don't do anything, that ivy will grow over your whole house and bury you. It needs to grow and propagate itself. The farmers need to be the kind of farmers market they see it necessary to be in this economy at this time. It might not be the kind of farmers market I want it to be. It might not fit in my neighborhood anymore in the form it was, or in the form it wants to be. I can try to cultivate and manage it, but my vision of it is not a fact, and the sum total of everyone's visions is maybe the best outcome, if that sum total can be found. Maybe my house was built first, but the neighborhood is for all of us. So we probably need to get together and talk about it, if we can. Certainly we don't want to make things harder for each other.

And the city and county we are located in have different concerns and goals, and needs, than we do. Careful communication can help us see where things are going well and where they need adjustment. It seems that because we have been so persistent and tenacious in putting down our roots and tendrils, what was once viewed as an invasive species of hippies with brown pottery has evolved into business incubator, public gathering place, and very healthy arts venue that has enabled thousands of people to make a living during hard times and good. Both the 80's recession and this one have caused a lot of damage and Market has been a lifeline and still is. We've blossomed and seeded many times now. We want respect for that.

Being next to a space dedicated to free speech seems like a perfect fit. We are all about free expression and we support that. We've tried hard to manage that space adjacent to ours, because we are good gardeners and if our neighbor's tree comes over the fence we try to learn to appreciate it, or do what we can to alleviate the affects of the leaves and flower petals that fall on us. We're not going to tromp over there and cut it down.

We clean that space at our own expense, even though some people don't seem to respect some aspects of it and leave a mess. We've tried to educate. We were patient for years of a few pipes being sold, on a few blankets by a few people who needed the money. We've encouraged as many of the sellers there to join us as we can. We've tried to protect attendees from danger by spending thousands of our hard-earned dollars to close the spaces where illegal activities were hidden. It's our major concern that our value of having a safe and family-friendly community space is respected.

Things got out of hand. We worked a long and patient time for solutions. We're just beginning to find one and both the city and county are opening to trust us and work with us for the mutual goals that we hold. This is a world away from the days when we were the ones with the blankets being moved around town, trying to find a home to do what we were compelled to do to survive: to create and share our self-expression and to live lives of mutual respect and cooperation.

It's our charge to manage our garden. It's a task to which we bring all of our collective skills and for which we must spend a lot of time working on compassion, justice and fairness. We value equality. We want to hear each voice before we decide anything. We don't want anyone to go away mad before they understand how they can contribute and what will erode us.

We're not the establishment and we aren't conservative and we aren't all about making money. We want to meet a much broader range of needs than the economic ones. We want to find a way to support free expression in that space, and all over our city and our county. We're progressives. We want social progress. We want to be involved in evolving.

I watched Invictus last night. I know Morgan Freeman isn't Mandela and Matt Damon is an actor too. Still, I cried as I watched how carefully Mandela thought and the things he said about forgiveness and how much we need to change ourselves first if we want to change the world.

So let's keep looking within and see if we can exceed our own expectations and come up with the elegant solutions we need. I am sure that we can. There is so much common ground to stand on. There are so many people willing to do the work.

And when it all comes down to it, there are no enemies that cannot be made into friends. That's not just a movie scenario. When minds stay open, doors do too.

Keep thinking. Keep working. Keep dreaming of what the best world would look like. Be tenacious and persistent. Stand beside each other and use all the tools in the garage. And then do it some more. Because it is a lifetime of tending and it will never be finished.

Things to Love from the Market

Kim from Saturday Market is a very accomplished photographer, and in her weekly blog she often features wonderful closeups of the handmade items we all bring to show and sell.

Most of us don't have the means to collect a lot of them for ourselves, though for gifts and special treats we do purchase and at the very least covet nearly everything our friends and neighbors produce. I have a big family and really can't give the gifts I would like, but in searching I develop needs of my own.

I wanted one of these coffee filter holders for almost a year after my friend Pamela bought herself one. My old plastic one grew increasingly disgusting and I looked at the imports available with disdain and finally just followed my heart and bought this one from Amy Palatnick, also known as Amy the Potter. I love the way it looks with my tile, and the mug I bought at Holiday Market a couple of years ago from Claire and Bill Delffs at Moonfire Pottery.

Then on Tuesday I purchased this glasses chain from Cortney Fellet of The Steel Web, and in case you are not familiar with this kind of work, let me tell you that she opens each link of this stainless steel chain and puts the links together in the precise patterns needed to make the many types of chains she fashions. It's hard on the hands and needless to say takes a lot of focus and concentration to get it right.

I'm still getting used to having glasses on my chest (sometimes a shelf for crumbs, I find...) but it's better than having them on the top of my head.

And speaking of the top of my head, I can't wait to wear this.

Traveling in the Big World

I tell you what, there are a lot of people in the Denver airport! I had to laugh at myself for how small my life gets sometimes, just me and my cat, my little neighborhood, and work and work. Saturday Market definitely expands that world, and that Market family is large, too large for me to even know all of the other vendors and their families, although I do know most of them by sight now. I meet more every week, and see what they make, and how they live, a little bit, when we interface on Saturdays. I learn a bit more from Kim's blog, and the others linked on her site.

Add the public who comes to hang with us are a pretty big crowd, and our town seems pretty big, but I don't know what a million people feels like, really. Certainly I have no concept of a billion. Thanks to the internet, I get a glimpse of this, but I can turn off the computer and make my life small again. I like it small, generally.

But down at Tuesday Market when we had practically no customers at all this week, I got a little too comfortable with the limits, and started to think I will never be able to sell my inventory, never be able to expand my business, never get any better hold on financial security. I felt small and even a little desperate, and we all know that even a whiff of desperation will translate to people making very wide circles to avoid being drawn in even a little.

But there I was in the Denver airport today, realizing that of all those many, many people walking on the speedy sidewalks and trailing their wheely suitcases, hardly any of them, maybe even none of them, knew anything about what I make or how to get it or why they might want to. And the vast majority would never, ever stumble by my booth on the Park Blocks, and even if they did, they might get distracted by the Jell-O Art and not even notice that I make clothing and funny hats, much less that I paint silk and write and have important things on my mind.

But oh boy, I have the internet! I have a website with untapped potential and I have a digital camera and there is no reason that I have to stay in my small world when there is an almost limitless one that is open to me, as open as can be.

I checked my stats on this blog and I have had readers in 10 countries, many continents, and I had no idea. I never looked. The Gelatinaceae blog has similar stats. I suppose some of them are random hits and not really readers, but even so, my world is bigger than I thought.

And I don't even have to cram myself into a tiny seat in a metal tube that magically goes into the air and transports me back to my origins in just a few hours to reach these people. All I have to do is take pictures and post them, write entertaining tidbits to amuse them, and voila! Connection. It's amazing.

I'm really finding the Occupy protests heartening. I remember thinking when Kiev happened that I couldn't see my countrymen camping out in the snow for weeks to make change happen. I thought we were too comfortable to do such a thing. I am so happy to be wrong about that.

It may be that I was not the only one feeling a bit desperate this week. Perhaps a lot of people are feeling desperate, and instead of making wide circles to avoid each other, people are finding common ground and working together for each other. That's what it looks like.

I've certainly done my share of protesting, mostly when I was younger, and I well remember how full it makes a heart to be joined with others in passion for justice and equality and sensible choices and peace, and even prosperity. It's very wonderful to see people discovering that and building on that and forcing change to happen.

Because the master will not give you the tools to take down his house. You have to make the tools and you have to plan and dream and act. It's all within your grasp.

Discouragement and limiting yourself is a trap. There just isn't time for it. There's a lot of work to do, and the energy is there, and the imagination is there, and the means are available.

Local people, check in on Occupy Eugene, or Portland, and if you can't participate, there are other ways to support. People in the East, take the Amtrak up to NYC or Boston or get together with your people where you are. We're the 99%. What an amazing notion.

The Weather

Changes. Today was sunny and cool until the clouds blew in, and now it for sure feels just like rain. Last night after Market I was scrambling to get in the last of the tomatoes (at least they were red instead of green this year) and putting plastic on the rotten porch corner that I didn't get fixed. I would have picked the pears if I had any...not a great year for pears. I'll try fertilizing them more often next season.

Market was so full of people yesterday! Between the UO parents who had dropped off their kids and the Furthur crowd, things were the way they are supposed to be. Busy and happy. I personally did not have any kind of record sales, but it was satisfying enough overall. Some people did really well, even getting big sales at closing time. It's nice to go into the iffy weather season with a really good, hot day to remember. Maybe it won't be the last, but chances are it was.

Looks like the farmers are still working on the 8th St. closure, with a customer petition. I'm guessing they couldn't make the move happen so are thinking about next season and their need to bring in more money, which they can only do by adding vendors, since they have no percentage. They also probably don't want to move to city property, which would cost them a lot more than the county property they occupy at present. I don't get why they still think the closure will be a good idea. Were they not noticing on EC weekend when customers could not get to their market? Do they think any number of customer signatures will make us change our minds? Besides, the petition question is narrow and in the inflammatory language they so seem to love. What about the process of addressing the real objections to the plan with real solutions, if there are any?

But this is just another part of the continuing saga. I have resumed shopping over there, of course, but certainly not at the supportive level of last year before this all started. I used to go out of my way to support them, spending a ton of money every week, and counted so many friends among the farmers. Some of that is still in place, of course, but that synergy of two organizations working as "sisters" is certainly not there. We don't even speak to each other as organizations about our common issues, as far as I know. They didn't help at all with the plaza situation, even though they will of course benefit as well. It is sad to me that because we had different opinions about one issue, everything was permitted to hinge on that. After working to support them for decades, I don't feel good even going over there now. Guess I will work harder on finding ways to settle it for myself, and appreciate the friendships I do have, and be patient.

And frankly, I can't afford the prices any more. I've even been compromising my strict choice of organic only just to be able to eat seasonal fruits. At the same time the Kiva seems to have fewer local choices, not sure why. So instead of increasing my food security, this need for expansion of theirs has restricted mine. Feels ironic.

If I could afford a CSA, that might be a good solution. Maybe I will look into half-shares or something. It would be tough to commit though, since food spending is one of the few ways I can be flexible when times are lean. I will have to get more creative about trading, maybe, or gleaning. I do not want to get food stamps. I do not want to be a poor person.

Getting smarter about selling my products to increase my income is probably a better place to put my energy. Guess when the rains are here it will be a good time to work on my website, and get some online sales action. Except my silly cat knocked things off shelves last night and the period and comma keys on my laptop got broken off. They still function, but if I keep typing my two fingers used to hitting those keys are going to get sore.

So I'll just write long run-on sentences that don't use periods or commas even though that will surely annoy my readers and make them stop checking my blogs and avoid me altogether and turn me into a crazed old lady just needing attention and increasingly irrationally trying to fix things that can't be fixed and make progress in areas that don't allow progress and make more products that won't be taken seriously or can't be turned into money without offering them for peanuts and that will just pile up in the shop until I can't work in there anymore and will have to just set it on fire and start over which might be a fun project since I could borrow lots of money and build another dream house and this time remember to write enough things down in detail that I can write a compelling book about it like I always wanted to and buy a new laptop with all the features I need to do online sales transactions and solve all my problems at once! At least I will always have exclamation points! Bye!