Immersed

Fully into the middle of the Holiday Market now, loving it and being exhausted by it. It always surprises me how hard it is to dress up and smile for two days in a row...sometimes it goes quickly and other times I get bored with it. Little things start to bother me.

Things are normal at the Market, normal for the indoors scene. We weathered the break-in situation very well. I've never been so glad I fully packed up and hauled my stock and didn't have a single valuable thing to worry about, unless someone thinks pushpins and duct tape are valuable. That's all relative I guess. You never want to feel too safe or too complacent.

I did have to adjust my behavior to fit, though. I got a little paranoid that there was hatred being shown toward us, but as others pointed out, indications were that the paranoia was a lot more destructive. Our enemies are truly within.

When we go indoors our worst tendency is to point too many focused beams on our group and personal dynamics and lose the focus we are there to maintain. This fancy retailing we are doing is our work, the work we need to do to get through the winter without Markets. We need to support each other, not be selfish or competitive, and help each one of us shine our brightest for the next two weeks. It's essential that we be at our best.

We get scared when we see that the success of the Market might be leaving us behind. I watch Levana sell pair after pair of tie-dye underpants and I envy her...and sell another tote bag. I have my niche, as we all do, and its popularity wanes and peaks. Nobody can sell consistently well every Market day in every Market season. Just do your best and keep working to improve.

Presentation is my particular challenge, and I struggle constantly with balancing what I want to sell with what people want to buy. People-pleasing can be a tough character trait in retail. I had my shelves trimmed down to be quite manageable but one person wanted one of that old design I'm trying to phase out, so I brought those back. And someone else asked for that little item, so I brought ten of them. At least I learned that as fun as the Jell-O Art is, it distracts customers from the work I brought to sell. 

I wore my Queen outfit for favorite color day, since my favorite color is Jell-O. Although I looked adorable it confused a customer or two. We have to remember  that sometimes our culture doesn't include the customers, and they get frightened by us. The fashion days have been fairly well-integrated but some other aspects of our culture aren't meshing that well with the culture the customers are coming out of, to visit us.

One mistake we so frequently make is downloading our complaints and irrationality on the public, either by intention or by accident. Complaining on Facebook is fairly common and I always wonder what people are thinking. Do we want all of our friends and whichever random public people see our posts to think sales are bad at the Holiday Market and that we feel unappreciated and disappointed? I don't. Pity sales don't happen, or I would have gotten a lot more of them with my booted-up foot. Presentation doesn't just include the booth, and it isn't just for the weekend days we are there. Be brave enough to hope, and keep hoping. Be positive!

One thing I do recognize is that bad-tempered complaining vendors don't succeed. People come attracted to your "juice" and the more of it you share, the more they want. They want to be part of your success, not part of, or even responsible for your failure. They want a happy interaction in which they get lots of value for their money. Even if they are just looking. 

And your issues may not be anyone else's issues. Someone posted recently about their intolerance for children's behaviors; we've all worried when rambunctious young people enter our carefully controlled space. But remember that many people have children, take them places, and in fact feel invited to our Market. Some of us sell toys and clothing for them! Complaining about children in our space is as pointless as complaining about couples or about men, or about people who enjoy bad jokes. 

Everyone is welcome at our public gathering. We have a most special place on the weekends, a place people meet their friends and families, by accident or design, and the warmth and joy of that gathering is very precious and has nothing to do with commerce. I find the children delightful, and actually enjoy distracting them so their parents can shop. I have a harder time with the bad jokes, but it is not about me.

Let me shout: IT IS NOT ABOUT ME! So, so much of what is going on in the world has very little to do with me and what I want and what I fear. I find it particularly important to work out my fears before I bring them to others.

It was destructive for me to be thinking paranoid thoughts about whomever disturbed our space. It wasn't going to improve the situation, so I checked myself and reframed. I hope it didn't spread too far.

Please think about what you are saying during the duller moments of the Holiday Market, when you are wishing for customers and watching your neighbors and the aisles. Do you have questions about the Board, or about the Kareng Fund Board? Why not ask one of the people who sits at the table during those meetings, rather than just spread your fears around? You might find easy reassurance in a short conversation. Feel like the HM committee made a wrong decision? Go to the evaluation meeting and join the committee to make the decisions with the group instead of second-guessing them. 

Our organization is so transparent you'd be surprised how easy it is to find out the facts to support your view or see another. People are very willing to talk details or philosophy or process or vision, but that is what we do at meetings. We can't do it during the selling day, at least in a complete, fair manner. At Holiday Market, or on any given Saturday on the Park Blocks, we gather, but some of our most important work has to wait to be done during the week. 

There is a long personal journey to be taken between "us" and "them." I've been working on this in recent years with my role at OCF, where I often heard myself use the clanging dissonant term of "them." Clearly it was often a hidden, frustrated desire to be "us" or at the least, to feel like "us."

I've been "us" at the Saturday Market since I served on the Board in the late seventies and early eighties, and in fact was just reminiscing about when "we" started the New Holiday Market in around 1987 or 1988. Clare Feighan was the manager, and she and assistant manager Margo Schaeffer called all over the place to find a venue for us to get us indoors in December. We first landed reluctantly in the old quonset building, but the first New Holiday Market was one weekend in December. One weekend, in which we all made the same amount of money we had made the previous year in six weeks on the Park Blocks.

This was a revelation! Things didn't always happen the way we expected. We took the plunge and landed in the big room where we are now, and you can believe there were many who were not happy about it. It was a huge stretch in our self-concept, but look how right we were. 

There are always people, thank goodness, who have vision and wisdom and experience and are willing to participate, as a group, to guide us down our river (sometimes even upstream) to where we need to go. It is never easy. That is why we don't do much as individuals in the structure of our organization. We sit at a big round table, usually filling it with ten to fifteen people,  and we make the decisions together. We sometimes take a very long time to do it. Sometimes we might have been working on a particular issue for years, and you might just hear about the last part, and feel it was rushed. Generally we do not like to rush.

So next time you hear yourself saying some small thing that comes from your fears or your disappointment or your personal list of grievances, think about the rest of us, about the forty-three years of hard work many people have stretched themselves and their lives to accomplish, and re-establish your respect. Think about those who are selling for the first time, or their first few years, and think about the impression you might give them. Think about those in the public who know little about us. 

Leave them with the right impression, that of your best self. Be your favorite color, be in our rainbow. As Beth likes to say, you're in the basket. I love that. Stay in the basket. It's nice and cozy, and we can all fit. Just be extra kind, because some of us can get a little tender, especially in the last two weeks before Christmas.

Patience

Dang, went to get my stitches out and he put in some new ones after some impromtu surgery on the incision. Just when I really thought I would be able to bathe it and use it and have a normal foot again.

So I will have to hobble some more. It wasn't what I was prepared for, but this has just been one surprising development after another and I'm used to that now. Unfortunately I keep over-reaching for my other suspended activities without planning to be disabled.

I can walk I guess. He wants it to bleed a little. I got one of those cloth shoes since I can't wear any of mine. Just add it to the list of things I had to buy that I didn't want to own. Glad I hung onto a cane and a scooter just in case. I suppose I will just keep the crutches since things have a way of running out of control periodically and you just never know.

Guess I shouldn't have ordered that pile of leaves from the city. They came while I was on jury duty, which sucked up what was supposed to be my production day this week, and then leaf-moving sucked up yesterday, which was also supposed to be for production, some of which I put off for today, but now I can't do it. And I can't move the rest of the leaves, which are slumpling into the storm drains and making puddles in the street. I tried to get them into the yard yesterday, but I can only do so much walking and hauling on a good day.

I did stop into the County Deeds and Records office on my lunch break from jury duty and found the old record books are still there to be perused, so I looked for my people and some of their early transactions. I did find one from Huddleston to Vaughan in 1888 which could be the land transfer I am looking for, but the record itself is on microfilm and I will have to get down there again to look at it and get a copy. It could just be the sale of some cows or something but it could also be the land I'm sitting on, so I am excited to go spend a day next week in the records office.

I also got a few more tiny pieces of information and made contact with a few people who might lead me to some information I want. This morning I crawled up into the attic again to measure the roof rafters more precisely and it looks like they are 3 3/4 inches by 1 5/8, not true dimensions but that's not necessarily conclusive. They could have been replaced or probably shrunk, and I don't know quite enough from just the few I can reach from the attic space I improved into storage. That will be something to find out more about. I did ask my neighbor, whose house was built in 1916, what the interior of his walls looks like, and he says he has just siding over studs with lath and plaster on the inside. No 1x12s like I have. That lends credence to my theory that this was an existing building that was re-sided with the clapboards that match the neighbors'.

Focus is on Holiday Market though and everything else is secondary, except I guess my foot which keeps vying for the primary position over my making-a-living efforts. Foot comes first today. Tomorrow is Friday and that means load-in, and that means pain. I'll just take it slow and do what I can. Nobody has it easy, and this is minor. 

Holiday Market in itself is going well, sales are fine and it is fun to be appreciated and have people hand me money. We will be settling in this weekend and maybe will stop peering over our glasses at each other and picking up on all the details that we usually are able to gloss over and ignore. There must be some kind of a joke about what you get when you put 300 craftspeople in a room together. Sometimes it isn't that funny, but we will all soon be too busy to look at anyone else's goods but our own.

Now I must go have tea with important Radar Angels where we will discuss plans for our 25th annual Jell-O Show. I'm stepping into a more Queenly role here and will actually take some responsibility for promotion and whatever. I might even do some thespianism (thespiantics?) and get myself onstage. That would really be surprising and unexpected.

Strange things do happen, all the time.

 

Here in my Township

I'm sad, but I'm not going to make it to Market tomorrow. I hate missing the last outdoor Market, with its festive atmosphere and possibly good sales. I toyed with the idea of just taking a tiny load, the hats and bags, and a little infrastructure, but my incision from the surgery hasn't healed and the stress of the 12-hour day won't help that. It needs rest and gentle treatment. I already abandoned the boot a little too early and have done a little too much on my feet in the last few days. Darn.

But instead I will make sure I am prepared for Holiday Market load-in, which I am of course because I got it all organized weeks ago. I'll listen to the Saturday radio shows that I so rarely get to hear and watch the Woodworker show. I'll ride the stationary bike with my good foot.

In a couple of weeks this will be a memory and I can get on to being anxious and worried about something else. Looking forward to that.

But of course the extra time means more house research and I have a new stack of books thanks to Colleen who took me to the library. Just as we had to rush off for our meeting I found a book about River Road which had the 1860 Cadastral Map that clearly showed the Davis claims along the river there and that got me so very excited. Benjamin and Lycurgus Davis picked big tracts of land right there on the river and another Davis, Joseph, set up on the other side of Benjamin. I'll have to see how they were related, if they were. Seems likely. I really cannot wait until I can get on my bike and follow the path all along what was their land (once they took it, that is). I'm hoping to find some architectural remains somehow but that is not that likely. Maybe those two trees...

There is also a section corner right south of me on the Fairgrounds somewhere, or maybe up as far as 18th, and I will see if I can find the exact spot of that, just out of curiosity. I doubt there are markers, but maybe on the telephone poles or something. Have you ever noticed those little metal plaques on some of the poles? I will investigate.

In case you don't know what I am talking about, it's the numbers given to the landscape when it was first surveyed by the white guys so they could divvy it up. I live in Township 17 South, Range 4 West, Section 36 of the West Willamette Meridian. Knowing these numbers allows you to pinpoint your location on the map and provides a relatively logical system for finding boundaries. It has helped immensely to find the original claims and the info about my own. I suppose that a GPS might be handy on the ground and maybe I'll see what I can do with my phone. I have barely explored all the ways I can use my smart phone, but there it lies waiting for me to join the 21st century.

I'm kind of immersed in the 19th. I've started reading the Oregon Trail accounts in search of the Davises and others who came here in the 1850's. It's endlessly fascinating still but soon I will have found all of what has been written. It turns out that if you don't have descendents, you die and are forgotten. No wonder they all placed such high value on having sons.

It was very hard what they did, striking out on adventures that included quite a lot of danger and death. Many, many of these people lost their children and spouses and treasured possessions and built back up with a huge amount of hard work. I imagine, though, that when they started farming this deep river soil they were quite pleased with themselves. No doubt you could grow pretty much whatever you wanted.

So they had some food security, and now over 150 years later we are using the Willamette Valley to grow some of those staple crops again. The Willamette Valley Bean and Grain project is getting some press and what an innovative and encouraging project it is! I've been enjoying the many dry bean varieties and other grains for a couple of years now and I am so happy for people like Kasey who are seeing the results of their own very hard work and dedication.

One of the most fun and bittersweet aspects of watching these young farmers in their highly productive years, seeing them build their families and their social networks of other young families, and remembering my thirties and forties when I was working my ass off building my own, is that I feel profoundly the passage of time. Generally I kind of look to the next project and time slips by unnoticed, but ever since I found myself at sixty a couple of years ago, something shifted.

One of these days it will be over for me, really over, hopefully not for a couple of decades. But loss is constant and there are already things I won't do again, like being a farmer and being a young mother, and taking off on grand adventures without a care. I guess crossing the mountains in my Jeep, pouring oil into my engine with its broken piston, will make a good saga and I had better write it. 

Like these long-gone people I have begun to feel connected to like family, if nobody writes it down, the oral history will someday be forgotten, or at least not easily accessed. The tiny little clues might not get added up. I was watching a program about the big statues in the Easter Island region, how the legends said the statues walked. Always dismissed as impossible, finally some curious people made it happen again. They proved that a couple dozen people and some ropes could indeed make the statues walk. 

But without that word *walk,* they would probably have tried a whole bunch of other methods without success. Without the tiny clues I am finding, like people's maiden names and grave locations and the records of building permits and such, I would not be able to even accurately speculate about this very recent history of my neighborhood and township. 

So I'm glad that I am an archivist and accumulator of artifacts, glad I saved so many small items I found on the property. Someday I may figure out what those little slabs of marble I found were used for. I'll find out when the river rocks were spread under the house, and why my roof rafters are four feet apart. 

Someday I am going to put it all together and make it make sense. I hope I am not as speculative and plain mistaken as some of the historians I've read. I hope I don't end up writing historical fiction instead of history (fine line there, isn't it?) But if historical fiction is all I can manage, that will be okay too. Sometimes imagining how it might have been leads us to the discoveries that prove our points. It's a pretty creative process to do this research.

And it's a really effective distraction from this frustrating situation I've been in all freaking year. It has definitely kept me going and forestalled true acceptance of my dismal (though temporary) reality. It's a fulfilling type of escapism.

But dang, I want to be on my bike freewheeling along the river, thinking about agriculture, or downtown thinking about crafts and food. At least I will most definitely be over on the Huddleston property next week, selling my wares where they used to race their fine horses. It will be good, kind of like a family reunion. Which reminds me that I have to write that story too, take the oral traditions of the Saturday Market to the next level. That will be a long, complicated story that will have far fewer clues perhaps, though many more interviews. With only forty-some years to explore, most of my people will still be within a phone call's distance. Big difference, and a huge challenge. But it will be satisfying I think. Come see me with your stories.

Wallpaper

I've gotten back to researcing the wallpapers I found under the lath and plaster of my house. This crude almost Kraft paper stuff was pasted right onto the interior, horizontal 1/12s despite the cracks between them...it served as insulation too.


Because it was underneath the floral types, at first I thought it was early Art Deco, but the more I look the more I think it was Gothic Revival paper, which would make it from the 1840's! Any experts out there? There isn't much that resembles it anywhere online that I have found, but the primitive blockprint quality of it lends credence to its age.

I'll keep looking, of course, but since I already decided my exterior was once board and batten, before the siding was put on in maybe 1916, this makes it possible that the original style was sort of Gothic Revival. The house itself doesn't have the usual height for that style, but people who built their own houses didn't necessarily stay true to any architectural plan. If Gothic Revival was in style, that was just external decoration to a degree.

Modifying it to a style more like a Craftsman bungalow would be something easily done with a facelift such as the clapboards and porch columns might add. 

The brown wallpaper was in what must have been the parlor since the front door is there, and the turquoise of the same pattern was in the bedroom. It extended across the back and looked like it was there before the closet was put in, because the closet wasn't papered with the same layers. The closet is where the 1850's lockset was installed. The floral paper was clearly pasted over the blue stuff, which makes it unlikely that the blue stuff was Art Deco. The timing just wouldn't be right.

The blockprint technique and crude design makes it possible that the stuff was produced locally or in San Francisco and not imported. Lots of things were made here, so it is possible that someone had a small wallpaper shop. More perusal of the newspapers and city directories might shed some light there.

Of course proving much of anything is pretty much a guess, since everyone is long gone from the scene. I did figure out who Lycurgus Davis was, Samantha's brother who came with her and her family, the Benjamin Davis family, on a Peek wagon train in 1847. They were the second family to settle, right after the Skinners. He eight and left home at 13 to become a ranch hand, but for 38 years was a carpenter and contractor and built many of the early homes in the downtown area. There has got to be documentation of some of that.

That is a thrilling clue, because he could well have been the original builder of this house. The Davis claim was out on the river road, which we still call River Road, but I haven't pinned down exactly where. They had reportedly good relations with the natives (after a lot of trouble on the way here, in the Rogue Valley) who were still in place when they got here, so we assume still burning off the forests to protect the wetlands camas crops. Apparently Catherine Davis loved trees very much and fought to have two large Doug firs saved from development, so there might be some documentation of that and of their original location. Catharine is quite famous for being a doctor who made a lot of trips to save lives in the hills around here, and raised her remaining five children after her husband died only 11 years after they arrived, when she was only 47. (He only lived to be 50, though he was a locally famous judge.) Curiously, in several censuses and the original records of the wagon trains, Samantha seems to be named Cynthia almost up until the time she got married. Probably this is just mistakes made by the census takers, or people who read their handwriting.

Tiny bit by tiny bit, things are revealed. I think Cynthia wanted a more contemporary name and chose Samantha herself. You might imagine that someone who came west in an oxen-drawn wagon might have some gumption. She was ten at the time. Lemuel, the oldest, settled on the coast and has a little cemetary of his own, south of Newport, the South Beach cemetary. At one point Cynthia/Samantha isn't listed as living at home and that may have been a period when she was working for the Skinners as their babysitter/ house help. 

So many stories. So tantalizing.

At least the weather got politics off the news

I know a couple of people are waiting for an update on my surgery, so let's get that out of the way. It went fine, and all the metal came out pristine and undamaged. I didn't suffer any post-anaesthetic trauma. I've been sitting and icing and elevating for a week and everything looks fine. I'm not requiring any medications at this point though I could use something for the boredom.

I'm doing okay with it. Got perty low yesterday what with my Mom being in the direct hit zone with the Frankenstorm and my frustration with moving around being so difficult and annoying. I guess this was cousins week. Got a call yesterday from one on my Dad's side telling me that one of my friends from the past had died in a car accident.

Dorinda Hoarty Hartson had been living in the Sedona-Parks-Scottsdale area of Arizona and I don't know much about her since we parted ways way back in the 70's. She was really important in getting me unstuck from Delaware and I joined her in moving to Colorado and New York City. She was both brave and tender and a great companion for adventure. We landed in Boulder and found it too crowded and got an apartment in Colorado Springs and waitress jobs at the Broadmoor. I'm still drawing on the material from those days.

I was in my early twenties. Each person I met led me to some person or place that became an essential part of my story. I had to work out some weighty issues in those days and I wasn't particularly graceful about it. Dorinda used to call me Diana and she was very graceful. I learned a lot about how to imagine bigger things for myself. There's no way I would have lived in NYC without the safety of her friendship and even though that only constituted six months of my life, it was pivotal. I took a calligraphy class at the Art Students League where I opened up the world of art and letters. I accompanied my Mom on her first big trip, to Greece. I saw the Bayeux Tapestries at the Cloisters and really got a taste of the amount of everything that is NYC, back when danger didn't seem so daunting.

I shouldn't have let her boyfriend seduce me in that gentrified lower East Side walkup but those were those days. At least it got me back to Colorado for the rest of my adventures, which led me to Eugene and helped me create the safe and healthy life I needed.  It's rather amazing how each little choice and each little interest we follow leads us toward and away from our various destinies and futures.

Anyway, I might not be here in Eugene without Dorinda, and it's too bad I didn't seek her out before it was too late. This is how the choices work too.

Cousins from my Mom's side fed me pineapple upside-down cake on Sunday and we got caught up with my Aunt Lud, Mom's oldest sister, and her husband Homer, two of the sweetest and oldest people I know. My generation is getting old now and these direct descendants of the Nebraska homesteaders are showing us the way. My cousin Bobbi is submerged deeply in geneology so it was super fun to let her get a glimpse of my house and house research. She said my lot description is a prime example of "meets and bounds" descriptions, which are usually long-winded things starting out with "Beginning at a point in the west line of ...."

We didn't have time to get very far into the research results but I plan to consult her some more as we go. We're trading books. She has researched the homestead records of our Nebraska family, and I know they will be fascinating. They took a tree claim too and had to document extensively each tree they planted and all the other improvements to show whether or not they proved up, so that will be some cool detail I can look for here too. 

Monroe street would have been pretty close to the center of the Huddleston holdings and I kind of see it as a grand entry to the racetrack property, so I'm thinking those huge Catalpa trees south of the Fairgrounds can probably be traced to the Huddlestons. Since the lands they claimed here in the westside were grasslands and wetlands, there were few trees when they got here, so most of the old trees were planted by the early settlers. They were farmers, after all.

So they planted fruit and nut trees, and maples and oaks to shade their dairy cows and horses. The Catalpa don't have an easy explanation but they could have been nostalgic for someone. These people weren't far removed from Virginia and Missouri. My big Gravenstein tree could have been planted pretty early on. I'm not finding many clues yet about the Vaughan Dairy farm but I think I will at the County. I think it was gone by the time the neighborhood was platted by Samantha and her son Henry in 1908.

My property wasn't platted at that time, sitting on a little peninsula still attached to the Fairgrounds. I'm thinking that this was because there were the leftover outbuildings here that became my house and the one next door. On some map I am going to find the proof of this, if I am lucky and persistent.

Mostly my research is stalled until I can make it down to the County Deeds and Records office for a few hours. I may be able to make that happen next week. I need to do it. I'm actually getting bored here, looking out the same window and walls for far too many hours in a row. I do have things to do, but you know how when things get funky you sort of lose the energy for improvement. 

I just want to walk normally again. I really can't feel content until I am back on my two feet and my bike. I don't want to rush my body and prolong the healing though, so I am resting and elevating and trying to make slow progress without pain. Really not too big of a challenge compared to running into a tree or being in the path of a giant storm or permanently disabled, which I sincerely hope I am not. 

I almost had my full mobility back before last week and I will get it back soon, no matter how many times I have to go up and down those library stairs practicing. I probably won't make it back to the Park Blocks for any more outdoor Markets this season. This is hard for me.

Loyalty is one of the qualities I have tried to develop (despite the betrayals of those early years) and I am loyal to my Market. I feel virtuous about selling on the rainy days and the days when it gets dark before I get home, and I feel like a deserter sitting here taking it easy. I probably could make it through a Market this weekend if I had people to drag me down there and help me with my stuff, but that is just too much work to do for marginal pay and questionable weather. It's a practical decision, and I also try to be practical, but I still get romantic fantasies and going to Market is one. I can go next year. I will be at Holiday Market, and it makes sense to rest up really well so the load-in of that goes smoothly. 

Lots of people skip Markets for much more dubious reasons and I know I'm forgiven and understood, so the dilemma is pretty much an interior one with no real weight. This is not a big deal, this frustration and annoyance and boredom. It just seems like a big deal because I am so seldom this annoyed, frustrated, or have so much time on my hands.

You would think I would just be able to enjoy it, for heaven's sake. I'll try to do better today. Maybe I'll watch some more footage of east coast McMansions being dragged off the beach and enjoy the refreshing intervention of nature into our best-laid plans. Anyway it's time to get up and get out some more ice.

Hope you are all out there biking and raking leaves (kinda too breezy for both today) and I will be joining you soon!

   

Cramming for the test

Heading off on a bike ride to my dentist, a long ambitious bike ride in the morning fog, but I am compelled to get as much exercise as possible this week. Yesterday I walked downtown to see how far I could indeed walk and guess if I can walk myself to my surgery on Monday. 

Yes, I am getting the metal removed from my foot on Monday. I'm about as anxious as can be, so I'm distracting myself with preparation. Put meals in the freezer, and gathered my favorite snacks, some movies, lots of books. Cleaned everything, including windows. 

I'll be off the foot for two weeks, and then will have to still be careful about the incision and my general health. The bone breaks are healed, but taking out the pins will leave holes in the bones, if the pins even come out. But sometimes negative thinking patterns are coping mechanisms and I'm trying to use my minimization and denial techniques to keep my calm about what is a minor, not life-threatening experience, under normal circumstances. I'm a lucky person.

I distracted myself all day yesterday with house research, and it was rich. I went to the Lane County Historical Museum which is right here in my neighborhood, and found out some crucial research techniques. I hurried off to the library, ignoring the lifted fog and sunny day, and checked out the Polk's City Directories which list Heads of households and how much they paid in taxes in many of the early years. 

Turns out Samantha Davis Huddleston paid huge tax bills in the early part of the 20th century. I'm guessing she had so much property (most of which was taken for free in the donation land claims) from her husband's acquisitions, that she couldn't sell it off fast enough to save on taxes. She and her grown son lived in the neighborhood for a very long time, and I'm going to walk by their house if I can find it. Eugene changed its street numbers in that time, so it is sometimes difficult to pin down a particular house.

I'm beginning to wonder if Frank and Grace Bowers ever lived in this house, even though Frank splashed his name inside so many walls. He certainly engaged in fixing it up. I have to go back to the County records to figure out more of the little details.

I found reference to Tillie Van Harken living here as early as 1925. She may have bought and sold it. She was 65 in 1925, and had come here from Holland in maybe 1908. She may have done some of the work decorating...maybe that early wallpaper came from her. I hope I can tease out the progression of work somehow from the county records. It won't be easy, so I don't think I will accomplish it today. But it's really, really fun.

The women working at the Museum were super and I will go back there many times to fill in details for my eventual articles or book. I'm tempted to write about Samantha now. She must have been quite powerful. Her father, Benjamin Davis, was a judge and I'm reading the earliest probate records now. He has just died and James Huddleston is settling his estate. This is in 1858. The list of his effects is astounding and does include several city lots with stables. I'm so excited by this I wish I didn't have to rush off to the dentist now. 

So my latest theory is that I am living in one of the former stables. This would explain the wide, inadequate spacing of the rafters and joists that were not meant to hold the weight of asphalt shingles or an attic. This place was not built to be a house in the beginning, I'm sure.

So I will rush around for a few more days trying to find out more, and come back and tell you about those possessions and their distribution, and we shall see what we can learn about Samantha, Grace, and Tillie. And starting Monday I will be icing and elevating my foot again and trying not to enjoy myself too much on my little vacation.

I'll miss a week or two of Market, and Hallowe'en, and a few other things I might like to attend but won't be. I'm not planning to need a lot of help. Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I'm able to prepare this time and I'm experienced at this now. It will be fine.

Onward into the fog! Last day to hang up laundry, so I hope it clears soon.

Not Fade Away

I don't really enjoy autumn, even though of course I know it is part of the circle we all are on, but the fading of summer always leaves me wanting more. I'm finishing up outside painting projects, canning tomatoes, working in the yard and garden. Sitting in the sun whenever it is out seems mandatory.

I scheduled the removal of metal from my foot for late October. It's scary to open up the incision again and sign up for some amount of healing and sitting around icing and elevating again. This foot injury has consumed so much of my life this year, I just want it to be over. 

Yet I'm still learning from it and hope it will encourage me to be more careful and in synch with my body so I don't injure myself again. It scares me how close to death people get as we age, and how many fronts we have to monitor to keep ourselves going.

I analyzed the Saturday Market safety net for what we might be calling vintage vendors, or some such designation. We have so many policies and practices in place, I feel rather secure about my aging experience at Market. The best part of that is that those policies are in place for everyone, not just our treasured elders. We treasure everybody.

From our simple membership point accumulation to our case-by-case system of responding, we have about a dozen options for those suffering difficulty. I didn't even remember to list neighborhood responses, which are primary during the Market day. Every little group of us has an agreement to keep things flowing, whether it be parking to load or unload, the work itself, or booth-watching and networking with each other. We often stop short of creating policy because our agreements are working so well.

I spoke to the Standards Committee about the issue, and began by saying to those gathered at our big round table that one of our core tenets is equality. We may never decide to allow extra services for any interest group because we have so many already in place for all. In almost all aspects of our Market experience, our gathering as equals sets the ground for what we do and how we think about it.

I watched a new vendor in our neighborhood last week have what appeared to be an isolated, rather unsatisfying experience, and I wondered if maybe in our comfort we seemed to be unfriendly to newcomers. I know most of us vendors are intimidating to customers, but I have to remind myself to constantly open up to other Market people as well, actually looking at and even buying their products, and engaging in the level of community we all want while we are there on any given day. When you don't know practically everyone and their thirty-some year history as I do, it must seem sometimes like an ordinary festival where you come and sell and take money home and repeat that in many similar locations. 

But Saturday Market is so much more than an ordinary festival. The frequency of our gatherings, every Saturday and then every weekend at Holiday Market, fosters the familiarity and routine we thrive on. We start to be able to look around and create community, to be generous with our time and profits, to track our experiences, and to want to share our emotional wealth. We often can't afford our neighbors' goods, but we can certainly appreciate them and even perhaps add to their artistic experience with our educated feedback. There might be some intimidation (going both ways) with customers, but there isn't very much when it comes to each other. 

I recently bought a Batitat, a very cool bat house I had been admiring. I bought the kit but it was still a substantial frivolous purchase for my current situation, but I need to encourage myself to get back to making other things besides my craft. But of course, in my confidence, I did not watch his online video or even take the time to examine the construction of his built houses, I just put it together with a glance at the photo on the instructions, and I did it wrong in several ways. I had to take most of it apart and do it again. It was embarrassing, but I did discover a way that people could fail, and suggested to him a couple of ways to change that. He's a super lovely person and I hope he appreciated the feedback. 

The rebuild was successful and reminded me that creative people take a lot of risks when they make things...they often find new ways to do simple tasks, sometimes an improvement, sometimes not. But as I had planned, using the drill got me more interested in picking up tools again, so I got more than my money's worth from the purchase. 

I hung it on my house after some internal debate about screwing things to my siding. It also re-piqued (there's a word for you) my interest in my house and I started researching again. This is one of the upsides of autumn, more time indoors to do writing projects, something that will also help me get through the minor surgery I have planned and keep me grounded through the winter. My house is an endless fascination to me. 

I studied census records for more info about my people, the ones whose names I found on the boards inside my house. I will have to go back to the newspapers for the kind of stories I want. For instance, my original landowner, James Huddleston, died rather early from a gangrened leg, but that doesn't show in the census. One decade he is head of household, the next one, his widow is. The Floyd G. Vaughan whose daughter was Grace Bowers lost his first wife (not Grace's mother) in a buggy accident in 1882. In the 1880 census his household included a housekeeper, Miranda Haskett, and in the next one, (actually 30 years later, as he seems to be missing from 1890 through 1910, probably because I am not looking in the right place) 1910, he has married Miranda and they have more children, including my favorite, Grace. There are a number of missing children, presumably deceased. Miranda's first husband died from a rattlesnake bite (really!) in 1853 yet she has children born in 1880 so there might be some gossip in that situation. There is a somewhat endless trail of leads and tantalizing details to follow up with more hours of research. All of it fascinates me as much as it would if they were my own relatives.

I love that Eugene history is only about 150 years old. Back in Delaware, where I grew up, things are 400 years old, and lead back to the Old Country. In my Mom's family, we have pictures of the farm in Poland where the ancestors were born, and my sister has researched my Dad's family to find things like relatives who fought in the same battle on opposing sides in the Civil War. Rich stuff, but my house is something I put my hands on every day. I am so intimate with my house, it's a relationship. I so wonder what details I destroyed in my ignorance. I'm so lucky the people pencilled their names on the boards, and so curious about the details of their stories.


I am so involved with my imaginings about these people, I cling to my square nail and my autographed boards and my pages of research, and look forward to the eventual book I will write. Like many writers I enjoy the isolation and free time necessary to do the research and writing, which lead in so many directions and use up so much energy. I need something to look forward to, especially when nature is telling me to wrap it up and fear is saying it might be cold and wet all too soon. 

I need to make things, to be working on things, simple and complex. It's my response to life. And I need to be able to use that energy to make money. Thus my love affair with Saturday Market, and my deep interest in keeping it relevant to my life, to keep it feeding me. I find myself attending meetings and speaking up, even taking on projects, that don't directly serve me, except as a member of this amazingly nurturing organization. I just love to look at it and record its doings and think about ways it can improve and sustain itself.

I'll admit there are many mornings I have to power myself through the impulse to stay home and create rather than take on the vulnerability of loading up and biking down there for a few bucks. Sometimes it doesn't pay off, and sometimes it doesn't quite satisfy emotionally, but overall, I'm getting a fabulous return on my investment in the Market. 

I was looking at early pictures of me there (I started in 1976 I think) and it is compelling that I have formed my life around Market. This fascinates me as much as the way my house people formed their lives around farming and acquiring land and building this house and others. It's a rich history, and if Colleen and I can get around to it, we might write a lot of it down. She has the memory and the drive, and the heart, to keep it on the burner until it proves out. I hope I do too. I'm glad I saved so many artifacts from my own life. They may end up at the dump, but they mean a lot to me now.

And yes, of course I wrote my name on the boards too. Someone someday will remodel or knock down this house, and I hope they find a trace of me. Maybe a lot of traces. 

They will look at what I left, like the marred Batitat and other somewhat foolish choices I made in the process of extending my house's life, and they will wonder what my stories were. For a minute. If I'm lucky. I won't know about it, I suppose. I will have a legend, possibly, but it will never tell the whole story.

Unless they find my blogs and my boxes of notes and false starts and brilliant ideas and piles of creations, unless they find me fascinating enough to research my many trails. Me and the millions of other fascinating people. 

So many stories! So little time! Thanks for reading.





 

From the Inside

It was fun seeing the Slug Queen Competition from the inside...or close to the inside anyway. As a Celebrity Judge I was quite peripheral. I took it as an honor nevertheless, and anyway a great chance to spend a week or two on costuming, preparation, and Jell-O. I attempted to make a Slug-on-a-Stick for each Old Queen, with a few roses as back-up, but I ended up being so in love with my rose and calla bouquet that I had only two or three roses to give away. But many of the Queens enjoyed the gifts.

 Some of them confused them with bribes and I have to admit I don't enjoy the bribery system too much. For one thing, I didn't get many! I got no chocolate whatsoever, good or bad. Or baked goods! But of course that is just as well. I think there is a lot of pressure on the candidates to bribe, and it makes things chaotic and unfair. Chaos is somewhat of an encouraged part of the process, though, and it makes the show funnier, so maybe I should just keep my reservations to myself.

Doctor Professor Mildred Slugwak Dresselhaus knocked herself out on printed propaganda and very cool keepsakes, and her little gift box was amazing in itself. It contained double-helix earrings which were brilliant and I love them. She ran a kids science activity of some kind, which I was too fluffy to really experience, and her efforts were outstanding. Any other year she would have won hands down, but it seems it almost takes two years to make any headway in the actual winning of the crown. You really have to cover all of the bases.

I see better what we need in a Slug Queen, and it is a complex skill set. I think there is almost always some authenticity required. You can have a schtick, and you need some kind of angle that separates you from the wannabees, but if you start into a rant about your obscure fantasy, the Queens and judges tend to shut down and distance from you. I think they want real, with a twist. 

I don't think claiming to be an alien species works that well, and political rants just get yawns unless they are funny and topical. Costuming is essential, and really counts for a lot, but the judges want original, and personally, I appreciate handmade and homegrown. I doubt I'm in the majority on that.  I don't like to see it become a contest where money makes a difference. 

Yet the fundraising/Junior League type of social commitment is serious and the candidate needs to show an ability to get that ambitious job done. Crowd support helps there, because if you have a lot of friends, they will most likely show up at your events. Queen Holly made a ton of money for arts education, and did an amazing job with that part of the role. I think the candidate Gloria Slimem was right on that, making donations in the name of the Queens (exact specifics elude me in the pile of artifacts currently on my desk) and she shows great potential as a quiet and powerful social force. In my opinion she wasn't convincing as a political radical but she might be able to develop that more in her next incarnation, if she chooses to run again. The Slug Queens vary in their political persuasions (a little) and being a radical in Eugene is something real, so unless it is very camp or very authentic it doesn't convince (me, at least.) But maybe Gloria is an old-style feminist and merely carrying through the politics she has lived, and didn't feel the need to overstate the obvious. Her talent was hilarious and simple, and that gained her many points I'm sure. Bringing in an ice-cream wagon with a new flavor (which was delicious) didn't hurt either. She gave me a gift certificate for a scoop!

Our winner Sadie had a lot going for her, but I think it was her charming realness that put her over the top. Her youth and enthusiasm counted too. She had evident determination, she was powerful and generous, and she put a lot of fun into the mix. She was glamour for the everyday young family-woman. Her dancers were real people being pretty serious about the routine, not just men dressing in wigs thinking that was enough. She prepared. 

Today's Slug Queen will not likely be a last-minute fling entry (though of course that is always possible.) There's a level of gravity in the position that might not show, but is all important to the Old Queens who do the actual voting. Most of them really want a candidate who can do it all, in style, and finish out the whole year, growing into the royal position and adding to the legend. They take it a bit more seriously than the costumes might indicate.

So there are rules, though rule-breaking is part of the spontaneity that is also necessary.  There is an underlying importance to the competition and coronation that goes beyond the guffaws. I admire anyone who attempts the task. Getting up there in front of your friends and family and letting yourself express some quirks is risky and wonderful. As a personally liberating experience it probably tops many. 

But I'm still not going to do it. Too much socializing, schmoozing, and real work to appeal to me, since I have so many other irons in the fire in my personal life. I accept the role of Queen of Jell-O Art, and I may appear occasionally since I love my costume and it's all ready to go, but I might not make it the type of all-city royal like those I sat among. My good works might be limited to the world of Jell-O Art and shameless self-promotion. I have pledged to promote next year's Jell-O Art Show, which will be the 25th Annual (more or less, because one was at Valentine's Day instead of April Fools and we're not sure if we count it or not) and I will do so as best I can. I entered my Jell-O in the Mayor's Show and it will appear in the not-the-Refusee show, even though that means I have to haul it down to the Market and walk it over to the gallery this Saturday. Jell-O Art is my cause, and since Sadie's is alternative art (or some such) maybe we will intersect nicely. At any rate she has my support!

It was thrilling to sit on stage with the Queens and see the candidates from the back while I watched the wonderfully enjoying crowd and the lovely summer evening. I felt uniquely privileged. Thanks to all who made it happen.

But I will admit that my favorite moments were biking downtown in my crinolines and sports bra, which were technically my underwear, with a basket of Jell-O roses bungeed on the back rack, feeling the hot summer breeze and wearing Jell-O on my head, and then biking home in the dark. I felt the most glorious, the most satisfied, the most beautiful then, because I imagined the wonder of a little girl who might have seen me pass.

"Mommy, I just saw a Queen on her bike! I want to be just like her someday." And I imagined that her mother might reply, "Then you will be, because every woman is a Queen as soon as she believes she is." 

No voting, no bribing, no costuming can make a Queen. You have to find her within, and then let her show. If you are having trouble getting started, try being an Angel first. Just unfold those little wings and make some art. Express yourself.

And then gather around you the people who will help you learn the ways, and go far away from those who will hurt you and hold you down. Liberate yourself. Then it won't matter if you win or lose, you will know your worth. 

I think that's what separated Sadie from the rest. She has an inner glow that is just infectious, whether she is competing or just walking around with her kids. She wanted it really badly, but I don't think losing would have crushed her. She has the grace and style required. She's going to be an amazing Queen.

We're lucky to have her as our irreverent Ruler. Brava!

Exciting Day!

I'm judging the Slug Queen contest tonight in my persona as the Queen of Jell-O Art, and I'm quite nervous about some of the details, such as how to manage my costume on my bike (in a box, most likely) and how to put on makeup as I have not done since my salad days. I'm sure it will all go well, however, as it is not really about me and I don't even have to explain myself for once.

I owe my blog some posts about the recovery from the broken calcaneus but it isn't such a pretty picture and I don't want to complain. I walk but very slowly, trying hard to place each foot in line, not fall over, and not limp. I can make it downtown if I allow enough time. I can ride my bike almost normally now though I still fear having to put my right foot down too hard. My doctor assures me it has knit and I can't break it again. (Knocking on wood anyway.)

I have some interesting pictures of how I coped, with a lot of tote bags hanging on my crutches, walker, and knee scooter, and I still have a loaner knee scooter which came in handy as a kind of little goat to move boxes around when I wasn't lifting things. I coped and coped, as people do. I was encouraged by the fact that I would indeed recover, and it seems to be taking a lot longer and requiring a lot more patience than I expected, but each day I improve. 

Of course when I get the metal taken out there will be a setback, but let's not even think about that today. I'm determined to keep doing the Market (I'm back to doing that independently and still extremely grateful for those who helped me, especially Nancy and Deb, who went way beyond the pale in being helpful. 

Oh, the book came out! I have lots of copies to sell. It is called Winter Tales II: Women on the Art of Aging, and it's still very gratifying to see my photo and words in a real book. You can go on Amazon and review it and somehow that will improve its internet presence and we will all approach millionaire status, if not quickly, inexorably. Or something. I'm thinking about my various writing projects, if not actually working on them. I'm trying to enjoy some summer. It's different as I can't really hike and my biking distance is still short, but I'm loving the weather no matter how hot.

I will write more, I promise, but I have a lot to do today! Come join me at the Park Blocks at sixish tonight. I know you'll enjoy it. I know I will!
 

Made it!

First morning post-Fair, and my challenge for today and the rest of the week is to break out of the pattern of overworking and get back to prioritizing my foot. Walking at the OCF was hellish and I restricted myself to the Shady Grove bathrooms and the Sauna. If I could get something on the way to either of those, I did, and if I couldn't, I had to send someone to fetch or depend on the kindness of my Fair family. They all took very loving care of me and Pamela even got me to ice and elevate once. She had foot issues of her own and we had a bit of grim resignation in our make-up this Fair. But we kept on and made it happen and it was gratifying and successful. Pamela is beyond helpful, into the realm of saintly, but her sense of humor and generosity with people-stuff keeps her on the ground. Tom took on the booth-father duties with Dave and Lisa took over the path-watering from her temporarily absent Dad and we all managed a lot of laughter and fun despite our rough circumstances. Losing Dave's beautiful booth and our shade was demoralizing but what mattered was still in place and we could recognize it.

My newly rebuilt bedroom/stockroom was fantastic and I had room for a rocking chair though I spent no time sitting in it. Dealing with the intensity of the sun was what took up my entire Wednesday pre-Fair and our shade was almost adequate. That was a giant tree. On further examination of the rings I now think it was just about the same age as I am, which is too ironic to consider. We both fell, and only one of us got up. But the tabletops from the trunk were gorgeous and lots of people ate in the little park across the way, so the tree lives on too, in another form. Thanks to Jen-Lin for her work on that and to Richard and his friend for the brilliant booth repair. I may add photos of it as it is definitely worth a look.

My son's friends came through for me as loaders, workers, and people to do me favors and I shelled out quite a few twenties and Sauna coins for all of the help I so needed and got. Kat is dependable and wonderfully helpful and Fabian worked out great, impressively so. John, my stellar son, walked all the way over to the meadow for sushi and even waited in Saman's line, and Ayla is really a fine, seasoned worker and I plan to keep her around. Tom and Pamela's sons Stewart and Tarq fetched ice, were cheerful and available, and Dave and Lisa's daughter Liz worked for me steadily and kept the best sales records ever. All in all we had some perfect ease with our younger generation, causing us to have lots of reminiscences of them running loose in the woods when they were little. I had wondered how we would shift to include our youngers and new ways continue to unfold. I feel really good about that. It was also great to include Natasha for the first time, with her refreshing enthusiasm,  and we're keeping Dan too. Such BIG THANKS to everyone.

Had some interesting conversations and made some plans about ways I can work for Fair and the craft community to ease our experiences in certain ways. I had a very difficult time dealing with procedures that required me to walk too much, but that just caused me to notice how much I was not the only struggling person and I have some ideas around that. We need to work on the anxiety of our arrival on site and get some advancement on how the various factions of Fair regard each other. It's my goal to rid us of us-vs-them (you've heard this before) and one person at a time I progress on this. I made a new friend in the wristband line as I functioned as listener for her as she unloaded her frustration, and she told me Sunday that it had changed her experience of the whole weekend to feel heard. Bingo. Let us just magnify that a thousand-fold. I did notice one guy in the junkyard-dog crew pre-Fair who did just that, admirably, and I know that more of that is possible as we evolve. It will get better and better. Listening is key. People really want to be heard and seen, and once that acknowledgement is in place, doors open. Vistas appear through the mist.

And now back to the rest of my life, writing and reading and weeding and continuing to get my full mobility back. I missed so much by not being able to walk to the meadow or the new loop or anywhere. It felt incomplete for me, so I'll be going out there to spend more time in the woods, putting the booth away and allowing the creatures to re-inhabit. It's a relief to have summer now. I shall revel in it.

Next stop August. At some point I would like to have a day without a list. Maybe two. I'll get there. Hope you are all well, and enjoying your lives. Summer may be brief, but it is full.

I'm dancing as fast as I can

Well, there went June with a single post and here it is July and the LAST WEEK before Fair. So many things to do I can't even keep up with making a list. I just keep my head down and keep working. Markets are great this time of year with all the out-of-town folks and the locals who escort them, and I am so grateful for the constant work of the Saturday Market and Fair staff who keep up with their own lists and make it all happen for me and for all of us.

It has been a tough month, as I'm still slowed down by my foot. I am walking, and can even do it without a cane, though I have a hitch in my get-along as R. would say. Yesterday I biked my full load to Market by myself! That was really a triumph I had looked forward to for months. Having my mobility back under my own control has been one of the most gratifying aspects of this busy month.

The June routine is old but every year seems new, but now at least I recognize the panic week when I am sure I will not finish everything and I am dismayed at most of my customers for how much they take me for granted with their last-minute decisions and impossible wrinkles in the familiar tasks. That was two weeks ago. Last week I got most of it done, and they all came through at least with their intentions, and starting tomorrow almost everything will have arrived and been sorted and the intensive printing will ensue. This will be the week of pride and dismay as I finish things and abandon things and get it all under control. I have always managed, and I am managing quite well despite the larger challenges.

Projects will drop off my personal list with regret. I have made no Jell-O since March and may not even take it to Fair with me. I ran through almost thirty books and ordered more, though. I'm making money from writing! That is a lifetime dream that still seems unbelievable. Market is going very well and I have to admit that not displaying the Jell-O is working for clothing sales...turns out it was a big distraction. When the clothing thins out more and I have more shelf space perhaps I will bring Jell-O Art back in a more subdued form. I still love it. Making money has just been more imperative this spring and I had to follow my instincts.

Fair will be a huge challenge but there will be ice and ibuprofen and perhaps good weather and lots of potential help that I will have to take advantage of. I have to make it up to the Sauna a few times but if I had to send young people out to find food and run my errands I would survive. At least two parades daily and many spontaneous happenings drift by my E. 13th booth so if I had to stay "home" all Fair I would still see plenty of magic and friends. 

I will miss the tree immensely. I will try to write an homage. I slept with my feet against the bark of that mighty ash for more than twenty-five years. I think we built that booth in 1985. The tree was the back corner and inside my bedroom although in the last year we built a wall just to the outside of the lean with the idea that when it fell it might miss me. And miss me it did, shearing off the pegs of an old Bob Walden coat rack that I had fastened to the wall. 

I do regret not hobbling out to place my hands on the trunk and experience the lingering life of my tree as it fully expired. I could still feel life in the slabs that became tabletops across the path, and a quick ring count convinced me that my ash was between one hundred and one-hundred-fifty years old. Now I see old ash trees everywhere. I have a new interest in what trees were here when the white people arrived to take up lands, and I see ash in my yard, though it probably planted itself. It freely seeds my garden and I pull a lot of ash trees up every spring. Yesterday I noticed at least a dozen huge, flowering catalpa trees on Monroe...who planted those, and when? They're just like orchids, covering the street and sidewalks and wafting fragrance all over the neighborhood.

The stump of my ash will prop up my booth now. I love the completeness and logic of that. I'll ask people to look at the rings on those tables and see what they can tell me. I'll pay more attention to trees, listening to their characteristic rustles and getting down the details of their bark and leaf shapes, until I can feel trees around me all of the time. Trees are so important to me. I still remember explicitly the weeping willow of my childhood, the one I escaped to every summer with my book and my confusions. I'd make a good tree-sitter. For the next while I will be staying on the ground though, and just glad to be putting two feet down at the same time.

I'm feeling really lucky, in fact, lucky to be alive with fixable problems and options I haven't even fully explored, and excitement and anticipation for the coming festivities. I'll get to see my son and his courageous partner, and enjoy my great neighbors and colleagues, and in a couple of weeks I will get a small vacation. August is by far my favorite month and I plan to swelter and languish and might even get the hammock up again. I'm happy to be alive and embracing the pains and sorrows with hope and compassion for the difficulties we all endure. I gave a book to Lotte yesterday in such gratitude for where her idea for an open-air Market in Eugene has taken us. She said she is now painting and drawing more and exploring color and of course that is the way we will progress through age, taking up whatever tools we can hold and whatever interests our eye. There is no end to art; it evolves, and we follow it.


I may be following slowly, but I haven't changed course. See you on the path!

Momentary Rest

Oh the sadly neglected blog. Much as I think about topics I just can't keep up with all of the work I have on my list. I am still researching the house, a few minutes a week maybe, and still watering the garden, though not planting anything in it. I'm managing to serve my customers, but not managing to make anything new or fill in the gaps in my retail inventory. Making money seems essential but my priority is supposed to be my foot.

It's better, more flexible after two weeks of PT and acupunture, chiropractic, orthotics, etc. I'm biking on a stationary bike I got as a curiosity from someone's free pile, which turns out to be much more useful than expected. I can go for about 30 minutes though my form and speed are pitiful. I don't care about speed at all, but I will need impeccable balance and a lot more muscle strength to prevent my good leg from doing all the work and to avoid things like falling over and putting my injured foot down too hard. I keep saying *a couple of weeks* but last night I dreamed I was biking along and today I know that is not happening. 

I'm down to one crutch, which I don't always need depending on the shoes and the circumstances, but I'm limping and wanting to hold onto things so am trying to slow down and carefully place my feet. I don't want to teach myself how to clomp about all cattywhampus. I want to take the time to relearn how to walk even more gracefully and balanced, since this is my big chance for improvement. All of this takes so much time, appointments nearly every day which involve more travel time than appointment time, since I'm insisting on scooting there under my own power. I need the cardio and fresh air and love the independence, so I'm working that good leg hard and probably looking quite mad as a grey-haired terror on the sidewalks and streets. And let me take a minute to say sweep your sidewalk, all of you, and see if you can do something about all those cracked and fragmented places! The sidewalks in our town are disgraceful. This is why you see so many vulnerable people on wheelchairs in the street. Look down when you stroll around the block. Even the curb cuts are inadequate as can be. Scary and something that can be improved with just a little effort.


I'm doing all the various exercises I'm assigned. I'm mostly showing up for things. I'm paying young people to bike my trailer down to Market and it's lovely to be back to that level of control. The Market has been such a positive thread in my recovery. Between that and Jell-O I have had many joyful moments and a wonderful network of help. I'm so very grateful for the people who care about these things with me. I feel the same about the approaching behemoth of the OCF. It represents so much work to me that occasionally I dip into the discouragement and complaining that is habitual it seems, but having the shirts to print this spring was a terrific source of self-esteem, not to mention income. 


I worked hard on my personal evolution regarding the persistent *us vs. them* that comes with the territory in large cooperative groups. It's easy to step out and feel not included for us iconoclasts but the more I participate the more I love it, and this is something that should have been a lot more obvious. I have learned to love the sometimes weighty process of trying to make sense of the dynamics and the decision-making. Certainly I don't always agree with the outcomes of the process, but I have a lot of faith in the process, and even more in the people engaging. We are a giant group of really fantastic people full of heart. It is way more amazing and special than we can possibly even witness from our limited views.


I love feeling connected with these long-term friendships and acquaintance-ships. These forty-some-year-old organizations are so embedded in our lives and personalities that we take them for granted and even dare to run them down with sarcasm and our other many defense mechanisms that exist because we care so much. We hold our organizations to such high standards of course they can't always please us. It sometimes hard for us to even admit how much we care, and how easily we are hurt when we don't feel seen and heard. 


I am here to say that I hope I never again engage in the complaining and criticizing of the past. Everybody is doing the best that they can, and in some cases, this is some stellar effort that often goes unrecognized. I am very proud of us. If I get to print one of my *special Fair shirts* this year (a tradition that goes back about 20 years now) I promise that it will be a loving one. Last year I did *Spawn* which largely went unrecognized, and I had to trash the one I did of the wicker woman due to my inability to draw her properly, and actually I sincerely doubt that I will manage to make one this year. But I have done many surprising things in the last few months so I don't want to deny myself the possibility of a brilliant homage. You never know.

My book came out, the anthology called Winter Tales II: Women on the Art of Aging, with an essay of mine included. It's rather thrilling! It's my first real publication and while I didn't get paid, I get to sell copies for a tidy profit so I ordered a pile of them. The essay is so much about my life that it almost hurts to read it...but it won't hurt you. I hope you all get a chance to enjoy it. I think I'll donate a copy to the library since it has been such a big part of my evolution and is still so essential to my life. There will be other people you know in it. Check it out on Amazon. 


I also managed a photo shoot with esteemed photographer George Filgate. I wanted good photos of my Jell-O and he managed that, plus he took some wonderful portraits of me. It's a bit hard to watch a long slide show of oneself but it was fascinating to look at each one and try to select the ones that had real authenticity of expression, no posing or faking or inattention, just the real me, exposed. Some of them are quite charming. Now when I am put in the Smithsonian I will be able to provide a great photo for my artist's statement. 


I decided not to do much in the way of costuming, but just present a simple real me. It turned out to be a good counterpoint to the complexity of the Jell-O. Even though I had to spend an entire Sunday dusting off the sculptures, it was well worth the effort. I'm unclear on the destination for these photographs so I'll post one here that is not among the very best, in case those get submitted to something exclusive like the Mayor's Show.  Be assured that a gifted photographer can do amazing subtle things with lights and positioning that could make anyone look photogenic and charming. It wasn't just me. 

This one is the real me, though the hands don't work for me in the composition...but they are great hands, and I'm glad he wanted me to show them. And maybe the smile is a little forced, but the nose is crooked and the face is not symmetrical and this is what I really look like. Even to me. And I certainly no longer hide that grin behind my hand like I did in my teen years, before I got braces in my thirties. I don't hide much these days.


I will, however, not allow the ones of my neck folds to reach public display. This is what 62 looks like, and it isn't that pretty most of the time. Yet pretty is over-rated. What we want is the real. That's what I want, anyway. More of it. Apparently I have a high pain tolerance. 


A good quality to develop.

 

Life on Mother's Day

I haven't been blogging lately. There are quite a few things that I haven't been keeping up with, and as usual when I feel my control slipping I fall into being at my worst: bitchy, intolerant, rude, full of fears. Weak and little and helpless and scared.


Which makes me normal and human, with that level of self-hatred that seeps out and makes human interaction so unpleasant. My list of complaints is long, and while most are legitimate, that makes me normal as well. Life is hard, and people die from it. In comparison to that, I should feel lucky and get back on whatever made me so positive during this broken foot ordeal. 


Writing those cheery daily emails was what worked for me. I was forced to put a good face on things and be generous because everyone was being so helpful and generous with me. The little pitfall was that they were doing it because of my injury, and that makes me caress my little disability and be just a tiny bit reluctant to let go of it.


Just one part of my psychology, of course, one that I fight to keep recessive. Being special because of one's needs and thwarted desires is a big trap and not something I want to nurture in myself. The drive to get back on my feet (literally) is just so difficult emotionally and physically and so far from my usual operating personality that it will be a huge relief to get back on my bike and hook up that trailer and re-inhabit my working life.


Not that I ever left it. I just finished my big 1500-piece order and am quite proud of myself. At one point it looked like I would have to let it go to someone else after wanting the contract for 20 or so years. I managed. I didn't think I would make it to opening day of the Market, or Tuesday Market, and I have managed all of those things and have served my existing customers and even taken on a few new ones. It was a lot harder than before and I have had to watch a lot of people do my work, at considerable pain and effort to them. But I did manage it, quite a lot of it.


It's evident that people who need help themselves are often the ones who end up giving it. They are too familiar with the helpless and hopeless feelings of need. They don't help because they think they will get something from it...they just can't help responding. They ride the line between enabling and saintliness. It's messy and uncomfortable and I would so much rather be in that world where I didn't need anyone and no one needed me. 


Not that I was ever really in that world...just imagined it sometimes. It seemed so simple and quiet. I just played with my Jell-O and imagined myself in the Smithsonian. Being crowned fed that illusion nicely and it was just fortunate that all that hoopla came at a time when I was living such a compromised existence. Now that it and the birthday and the Hallmark Mother's Day stuff is behind me I have to get back to my real life. 

Physical therapy starts this week and I know it will bring a lot of resistance and hope. I just have to get back on my bike, and start getting myself fully back into the retail that makes my living. OCF is looming and I have made no inventory whatsoever. And might not get to. My custom work is taking priority and now that the big order is finished I will be getting the *little* orders that are the crew shirt backs and I like to do those.


I actually felt very happy printing all those giant piles of shirts the same color. It was efficient and I know I will see so many of them walking around the place, and it makes me feel proud and a part of things. I enjoy feeling independent and productive so much. It's a huge part of me and why I work almost every day. I have been remembering that I don't even take Sundays off between May and mid-July...usually. 


And here I am working. Even blogging is a bit of a chore with this cervical or carpal distress or whatever it is I am having. I'm going to ask the PT to work on it with me too, since my foot is just one end of the body that is undergoing this problem. My whole body and my whole life is undergoing this injury. I'm out of balance, and my life is out of balance too. 


Restoration is the phase I'm in. Bit by bit I take my life back. I am forgoing the boot for a shoe and even a bare foot and trying to put weight on it, a little more each day. I pushed a little hard one day last week, seeing how long I could stand. I worked a full day and included about two hours of standing at the end. My foot swelled up and got bruised from wearing the wrong shoe (I have one suitable shoe for my right foot, and it was supposed to be an indoor shoe.) I had to scale back a little, and try again, more slowly.


I'm in what feels to me like crushing debt, with no progress in sight. I'm constantly paying out for what should be bringing it in. I have a little silent scream ringing in my ears. I know I need counseling (blogging therapy is limited...) but that costs a lot of money too! It's a vicious circle and I already knew about it and don't think I needed this extra lesson. 


But I suppose I did. Compassion is not the same as empathy and although I am caring, I can do a lot better. I was rude and demanding yesterday, trying to survive Market with only two hours of sleep, and I feel like my little Catholic girl needs to go to confession and communion and do some prayers of supplication. Mother Mary intercede for me and make everything better please, because I am doing all I can already and it is all too much. 


But prayers are thin efforts compared to the actions I must continue to take to maintain my relationships and return some of this help I've taken. I have to continue to struggle to be graceful in my distress and notice the distress of others. There is a long list of what makes me feel so lucky and whole and it begins with still having my real Mother in my life. 


Every day with her on my side makes me strong and resilient. She is the source of all my strength, the one who taught me how to put myself to sleep at night and to feel safe in confusion and to work hard, to clean well, and to keep order in all things. She set the standards and paid attention. It was not easy for her to raise five kids and gardens and hopes and dreams and to get us through times that no one knew how to navigate. 


My continued emotional dependence on her is really more of a nostalgic thing, as I am 62 now and do have my own life in some order. I don't ask her advice really but I do find I often write her emails listing my distresses and giving details of my hardships...I wonder how she receives these. I remind myself not to complain and to spare her things that might worry her, but I also feel compelled to share with her what my life is really like. I want her to know me as I want to know her, and whenever we are together we do have a beautiful connection that is a deep river in my life. 


I was once part of her body...that is a force that can barely be understood. She has known me every day of my longish life...in a way that no one else can come close to. There is much she does not know about me, of course, as it should be and is with all of us, but she knows things that even I have a different take on...she has my full life history to draw on when she reads my complaints.


I hope she remembers my resilience and cheery nature and how much I loved folk dancing in junior high and costumes on Hallowe'en and Christmas traditions that involved a lot of work and little real deep emotion. I hope she sees me now as an extraordinary person who took what she could give and ran with it. I hope she forgives my weaknesses and momentary lapses in grace and sees my whining for the real sharing I wish I could do in better ways. 


I hope she is more than satisfied with me, I hope she is proud of me every day. I hope she is proud of all of her family and what we did with her genetic material and selfless nurturing.


Birthdays always remind me of how many years we did not celebrate my Mom's birthday. Despite the gorgeously decorated angel food cakes and special dinners she always gave us, the parties and clothes and cards and now checks she always provides, Mom never got much attention from us on her birthday. It must have been galling, and I hope it was not as bleak as I think it was. I blame my Dad, of course, for not making us do it as parents must train their children constantly to meet their societal expectations. We didn't treat my Mom like she deserved to be treated. I'm really sorry for that. 


As adults we have tried to do better but I'm 3000 miles from Mom and even a yearly visit is so hard to do. My efforts to honor her don't match the depth of emotion that comes up when I think of how much I love her and appreciate her. It's my primary love, as deep as my love for my son, which is just another facet of the same love. 


As my grandmother's genes were in the eggs in my mother that made the eggs in me that resulted in my son, you can't separate yourself from your children. It's a miraculous and superlative aspect of being human that is almost beyond our emotional capacity to address. 


What your children are is what you are, and we aren't as separate as we wish. My Mom is essential to me. My son is my life in a new phase. This line, enriched by my fabulous siblings and enhanced by my wonderful friends, is for me, the pinnacle of human life. 


And life, on this gorgeous spring day, is bursting with beauty. I'm sad about death and destruction and disability and disaster, but we need those to balance the beauty. We suffer those to feel the fathomless force of life. 


Thank you, Mom, for the gift of my life. A day and a card and a phone call can't do justice to all that you have given me so selflessly for so long. 


I'm going to sit in the sun today and look at the glory of a clean glass of water sending sunlight to the tops of the quince branches. I'm going to transplant my little tomato seedlings grown from the best of last year's Rife's Red Hearts saved from the year before. 


I'm so lucky to be here. By next month I will be back on my bike and back to what seems normal in my world. It will feel good. That's a glimmer of what feels good. 

Life's a mystery and a joy. May all beings be well. Thank you so much, universe that I see and can't see. Let my eyes open further to joy and sunlight and Life.


And thank you to all women, who carry life around like it was just an ordinary burden. Just a task on a list of tasks. Just a moment in an ordinary day. Which it is, as it is all we know.