Turning Everything to Silver and Gold

My pipes are well insulated now, but I remember when the drains would freeze and I'd wash dishes in the bathtub. The snow is still too deep for my bike and trailer, but I have a car, and it starts. My house is at 55 degrees, but I have lots of clean socks, and boots, and that makes me one of the luckiest people I know today.

Yesterday was traumatic, not a good day to be one of the overly empathetic. It was hard enough on people getting to Friday's load-in, not to mention Saturday. Our Market looked full compared to the Farmers' and the Authors fair. I'm guessing any weekend event blew their budget yesterday. Still, the mood was good as Market began, vendors and supporters coming in on skiis, sleds, everyone changing from boots to indoor shoes, spreading out our offerings as if it were a normal Saturday in December, meaning fully stocked and with expectations running high.

Then a broken pipe in the ceiling of Holiday Hall let loose a deluge. Susanna's vinegars stood in a ten-shower stall as vendors and staff ran for tubs and towels and the showers spread and the ceiling tiles crumbled. In a matter of minutes the water was turned off, as well as the electricity, and each and every booth in Holiday Hall was shut down for the day.

Beth circled them up and took the lead. She promised to do everything she could for them, and if you know Beth, you know that everything she can do has been tested and will go beyond all of the things that came to your mind. Within the hour all of our members who could be were relocated, either in the lobby, or temporarily in one of the booths of the many members who hadn't been able to make it down their particular hills. Probably none of them had the sales they had expected, and all the work they had done to their displays and arrangements had to be done again, but creativity is problem-solving, and most of us are rather good at it.

A fund was started to offer some immediate relief, and I'm guessing there might be a Kareng Fund application or two. Longer-term relief will come as the situation settles out. People cried and hugged, and helped. Everybody helped. In the Main Hall, it was possible to not even know that all of that had happened.
Business as usual, hard times are hard, but we do know how to pick ourselves up and start smiling again. Even Susanne just kept working, drying off her products and assessing her immediate future. It occurred to me later that some people got drenched. No one whined.

I can't count the number of times I have said we had a hard year. Last year was a hard year too, and we were talking about the years when we had booths still outside in December. This is just not an easy life. You have got to have some inner resources when you break your foot or your car or your top shelf with the fifteen mugs on it. Oh yes, that happened yesterday too.(Not the foot, that was last year, though other people broke other body parts more recently.)

Resilience is the key. You get right up, accept the hugs and generosity and get back to work. Forced to stay home? You make more stock for next week, because our silver lining is that we do get next week. It will probably be cold and rainy, but that will feel normal. Troublesome is normal.

Why do we even expect things to be easy? A few things are, like helping in crisis, and responding to need. Yet, not so easy to watch people get sick and leave us, to figure out what to say, how to be compassionate within your own trauma, your own damage. How do you provide real comfort when small pleasures and gestures may be all that is available? It is a stumbly way, like navigating the streets with two inches of packed ice on them. Do not fall.

But if you do, do it right in the open in a community like ours. Someone will pick up your spilled groceries, hold your hand, look into your eyes. Someone wants to be there for you. It isn't easy for them, and it isn't easy for you. Not really for anyone. We all have something holding us down, keeping us back, tripping us up.

It will be okay. All will be well, as Vi has been known to say. Things happen and sometimes they are poop. When the poop headline hit the papers last summer, we thought it had the potential to kill our Market. I can laugh now, but that was huge, and yet, we played an important part in fixing that problem. Now people are viscerally aware that everyone poops, and they need a place to do that. One less thing that gets shuffled into the closet of compassion fatigue.

Each little thing makes the big picture, and the big picture is still an expansive landscape like one of Tim's photos, fractally filled with detail like one of his little botanicals. Every little raindrop holds a reflection like Katharine's dew photos. Things are just not simple, and they do not remain the same. The snow will become legend, and maybe next year we will use the Atrium instead of Holiday Hall. We don't see the opportunities in the same way we don't see the disasters coming. All we can really do is stay positive, flexible, and resilient. And sometimes we fight for what we need, fighting kindly in our way.

Don't forget that we are survivors, and our hearts are working, and we can always do more, and do it better. Just keep doing your best. There will be another Saturday, and another glorious morning, and we will learn some more about grace and love. Keep opening. It hurts a little, but sometimes it brings the help we need. 
Better go check the pipes in the shop and put on a third pair of socks. See you at Holiday Market!

Oh yes: THANK YOU.