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!