The Post post

We made it through the Holiday Market, most of us picked up our booths and our spirits and now we are in the lovely off-season. I hope everyone in my circles has a way to stretch out and enjoy the time for creativity and a way to survive the loss of retail for a bit. I am so looking forward to the long uninterrupted time to think and feel unpressured and enjoy the other parts of my life.

Things got a little desperate there, I know I was really over-sensitive and even just a few days off returns me to rational thinking and most of the things that seemed so important are easier now. The funniest thing about irrationality is how hard it is to see it, how hard it is to have perspective when we have lost perspective. We all need people who can ground us and things we do to heal up and really relax. I know even just a bit of solitude and silence clears up a lot of distress for me and after a few days of that I feel normal again.

I'm full of enthusiasm but it doesn't seem forced or over-the-top. I'm excited by Jell-O Art, my true heart's art form that I do for the love of it and to promote the Jell-O Art Show which will be March 28 this year. It is not the first day of Saturday Market, thanks to the sensitivity of Maude Kerns Art Center or the luck of the calendar. The years it lands on Opening Day are way too packed and although I have tried doing both I won't try it again, but I have to prioritize Jell-O if that does happen. I'm the Queen, what can I do? (The link to my Jell-O Art blog is gelatinaceae.blogspot.com )

I'm working on a book about my property and house remodel and am anxious and ready to get back to my research. That means spreading it out on tables in my living room but I like doing that and as soon as the decorations are packed up I get to start again. There will be a struggle for priority between the book and the Jell-O Art but that is not a problem. It's also time to get last year wrapped up for taxes and planning and to get ready to go to Australia (after the Jell-O Show) and do next year's retail season. Between the inside work I will prune the fruit trees and spread my still-giant leaf pile around the yard and learn Italian (for the Australia trip) and make bean soup and watch episodes of Dexter (I finally braved it and actually like the character enough to watch a few more seasons at least.) And read. I really want to read, I have stacks of books half-started to finish and new ones to start.

There's a little pressure to resume fiction-writing but it's hard to bump it up to importance when real life is so interesting. My fiction isn't as self-referential as it used to be, finally. For the many years I've been learning how to write I used my own stories but now they seem so much less compelling. Maybe I've finally told them enough. I'm just entering the period when my son is old enough to hear some of them, though, so you never know. The thin veneer of fiction makes some of them much better stories. He doesn't really need to know if all of it is true. I had a fun conversation with Ken Babbs about Kesey stories. I asked him if he had trouble remembering them and he laughed and said he just made things up. Of course he does. No true stories are really objectively that true anyway after we filter them through our brains and emotions. Still, I am drawn to real nonfiction writing much more than fiction and fortunately my writing group is pretty open to whatever I care to write.

Social interaction can be a problem during the offseason. Despite the difficulties of retail there is still a great comfort in having one day a week to be in the public acting like a completely rational person, interacting normally with other normal people. When I do it once or twice a week I don't have any disconnect around it. If I stay at home alone too long I get a little confused about whether or not I am rational, not that I am one to label myself with a mental illness but like everyone I tend to embrace my own reality over that of other people. It feels comfortable that way. When I get way into Jell-O Art or writing I can immerse deeply and don't welcome interruptions, so I think I put on my prickly suit and drive people off. I have to remind myself that I like and need other people, and I do, so I try for some offseason routines.

I talk to my Mom every Sunday and that works great for both of us. We will be travelling to Australia together so have lots to discuss. I text with my son every Saturday and we both like that as well. I have to remind myself to check on my neighbors or at least notice them when I am out in the yard, and I have to remind myself that the people who work in the Kiva are really not what you would call friends just because I have seen them so frequently over the last 40 years. The blogosphere is the same: these are not really conversations. I am telling you stuff and I am not really even sure who you are, much less what your response might be. I am comfortable with this middle-distance relating but it is not really a substitute for real human interaction.

So I have my meetings and volunteer work and the people I see on my walks and appointments and the real friends and relatives that I now actually have time to appreciate and get together with. It's nice to have the choice. I journal every day and put things in my way to force me out of my cave. I am happy as a clam in the summer sand so don't dig me up, I'll come out when the sun does, but I do send my foot up to look around and see if the coast is clear now and then.

I hope you all had a warm holiday and are doing what pleases you. I won't worry and don't you worry either. All will be well. See you at Art Bingo on Feb. 8th, see you at the SM BOD on Jan. 21, see you at the HM evaluation meeting on Jan. 14th or the OCF Craft Committee that same night. See you at the library or the grocery store or in the neighborhood. Stay warm and dry and help others do the same if you can. Was that the bell?

The Last Days

The last days are the hardest days, don't you worry, this is our normal. The giant sucking sound from the Duck Store has overwhelmed my sales hopes but there will be a lot of relieved travel agents and hoteliers in LA and the few local producers of Rose Bowl jerseys and crap will sleep better. I woke up early to the possum in the wood rack right outside my window hunkering down in the lashing wind that is probably dripping rain even down there. Another thing to deal with post-HM, replace the shredded tarp and tighten up the outside storage of the important things I can't seem to throw away, the wood I am going to use for those projects in the sky. Another reason to bitch and moan and bewail my impoverished life that I so irrationally am upset about these last few days.

So much in the sky right now. Every retail sale yesterday seemed to catch my heartstrings and give them a good, if discordant, tug. The Auction with Percussive Interludes raised an astounding total of dollars and the baskets for the drawing are packed full far out of proportion with the number of tickets in the jar. Saturday Market people are generous beyond measure, something that is probably true for poor-ish people everywhere. People who don't have much know how it is to need. None of us want any of our people to suffer the lack of hot water, security, any basic need, and that is what the Kareng Fund is there for. It is so easy to give to it. Donations probably represent a substantial percentage of our HM income for some individuals, and the giving just keeps going. It cruelly points out the disparities in our society, that all of it would be completely overshadowed by the signature on one check from one person in the upper strata of the society that thinks nothing of taking the whole family down to see the Rose Parade and the godlike sportsmen playing their serious games. There's a cruelty there but a resignation; that's just how it is, the world isn't fair, and me in my warm house worrying about a possum is nothing like someone in a tent by the river wishing they could have a cup of damn coffee. I have it good. I have a place to go today where people love me and see me as I really am, and will forgive me for this distress and the writing about it.

Anne Lamott said not to make any decisions right now when it is easy to see all of our inadequacies and just how to fix them. If my son doesn't visit I am a bad parent and doing everything wrong like I always have. I don't want to worry him with the reasons I can't drive up to see him: my left arm falls asleep in the extended position needed to drive, and my car is a POS car that might die if I try to drive that far anyway. My arm is damaged from lifting my tubs of hats, too many times. My car is old because a car these days costs as much as my house did and I just can't make myself throw that many of my resources in that direction. Yet I want to see him with a desperation that is way irrational. I could take the train but there are too many presents to carry, because my arm doesn't like me to carry things either. So the pile of presents makes me feel desperate, and I can't just tell him all this stuff because it isn't fair to burden other people with your stupid problems that you are supposed to just solve and get over and stop being so irrationally distressed about. Especially your only child who has always had to catch you if you tip over.

This stuff is the tip of the iceberg right now. Every customer brings me something similar. There are the bubbly ones so thrilled with their grandchildren, the ones with loving husbands who will fly with them thousands of miles to have holidays in their big houses with their big loving families just like on TV. I hate them so much I can't even watch TV right now when every show has to make the point that it is the family that matters, the love we share and the sumptuous feasts we prepare and the many thoughtful gifts. I sit with my thoughtful gifts that no one is buying and eat my sumptuous pad thai that Saman is kind enough to sell to me, and I thank the heavens above that I have the Holiday Market to be my family and to provide my warmth and my living. I spent years trying to sell in weather just like we have today and while things might seem a bit desperate this morning, this is nothing compared to the decades in our past when we didn't have such a good solution.

Before the Kareng Fund if you had a crisis you were on your own. Members and neighbors might take up a collection, but the way we do it now is brilliant and solid. If you need something, you just have to fill out a simple form and we will pay your bill. We want to. A group of us sit around a table or send a reply-all email and we give our hearts to you. We cry for you and reach out and help. We join together to do our best. It helps immensely. And all over the Holiday Market people are buying from each other, buying gifts, buying things they don't necessarily need, trading things they just love, making the exchanges just because we care for each other. We care so much it's overwhelming.

Before the Holiday Market it was just harder than hard. I have the demanding customers who want a discount after just telling me about their cruise on the clipper ship and I have the ones who are penniless and want to trade for edibles their sister makes. I have the ones who can't find a single thing worth their ten bucks or their hundred bucks. I have the ones whose husbands died and the ones who are so nuts their children won't visit, the ones who don't know how insensitive they are and the ones who know just how insensitive they are and just don't care. I get them all, I'm sitting there completely exposed and so vulnerable that I almost start to cry at least two or three times a day. I know we all sit in that place every day, we all beat ourselves up about the people we can't please and the ways we try too hard and the ways we can't compare. At least we are sitting there in our good clothes in the warmth and not huddling around our propane heaters kicking ourselves for our optimism like we did in the 80's. We have learned a thing or two.

Anne would have something helpful to say. I'm pretty depleted and way too emotional and I know I shouldn't even be saying this much. Believe me, I want to help you. I want to help all of you, but I don't want to need your help. I don't want you to even see that I need your help. I want to be the caretaker, not the needy. I want to be the parent with the plane tickets or the big house with the furnished guest rooms and the fireplace on the covered patio where we will all gather and feast tomorrow. But this is my life. This is my Christmas Eve morning, so I dress up in my pajama outfit which is not my real pajamas, it's my symbolic outfit that says it is really dark and wet out there, so I'm staying in bed today. Symbolically. Really I am suiting up and walking over to the Fairgrounds to put in one more day of work trying to please the people if I can.

This is my life the way I made it. If I'm alone tomorrow, I chose it. It will be a relief after this week, letting so many people in, opening up so wide. It will feel good to pull back and work on my Jell-O art and my book and my fruit trees and my house and possum problem. I will have all the solitude and hiding I can handle, and let's face it, my sales were good, despite the Rose Bowl. I have enough to get me to April and even Australia and I have everything I need. I have enough to share, to give, and to give some more. I can do this one more day, with grace.

Even if I get soaked tonight loading out, I am going to be graceful. I am going to let my pretty side show, my sweet side. I'm going to be grateful for each and every person who looks my way and I'm not going to let my irritation and hatred spoil what is the best we get. We are the warmest and luckiest community in the known universe, with our hand-crafted music and burritos and bloomers and hats and glittery decorations. We have everything we need, and plenty to share. We are rich beyond measure, and although it seems impossible to rest in that place and see the gorgeousness of it, that doesn't change it. It is there for us. The bells are ringing in our church steeple.

I'm going to sing along with Lizzie Cable and hit those high notes. I am going to figure out a gift for our amazing staff that will convey my appreciation for the way they give to me. I am going to enjoy myself and love more and fear less. I am not going to whine after I post this. This is my gift to you. I know you will appreciate it. Let us all hope that the light does indeed return and that this is the best year ever, coming up. Let us all hope that we are here to appreciate it. Let us all love in full measure and feel that we are loved.

And the edit from the next day, which happens to be Christmas, is that my son and his wife did come visit, took me out for sushi, gave me some amazing gingersnaps he made, and filled me with love and appreciation. The distress was distress. We all get it, we just have to learn how to work through it and not get stuck. Usually that takes other people to help us remember to see the love that is always there.

In the Middle

It still surprises me how tired I am after only two days of Holiday Market, though as the third weekend it is cumulative. I guess it is the overstimulation more than the actual work, as perching on a stool is much easier than standing on concrete and being warm and dry is still a delightful contrast to all the many days in the rain and snow before we invented the New Holiday Market. That's what we called it the first year, and I am proud to say I have sold all of the days of all of the HMs we've ever had. I still love it most of the time.

My space now on the corner by the south side doors is a great one. I'm close to the office and can check in on what's happening, and there is an eddy for customers to stop, be directed into Holiday Hall, or regroup. I like the energy that happens there, for the most part. Sometimes it is the location of disturbing incidents but mostly it is a calm center of joy. I made a little door on the side this year which is working out great as an escape for those trapped in the booth by other shoppers and it allows me to see what's happening on that side of my booth as well. I slip in and out and get a new view up Gnome Alley.

Despite my vow to get my shoppers out of the aisle I still have a few items on the outside of the booth that slow people down. Bringing the bags inside has worked okay, though I think I'd be selling more if they were still out there easy to pick up. I thought it was smart to eliminate the temptation for the rare dishonest person who might grab a bag and look like a legit shopper using it to steal, which to my knowledge hasn't happened, but could. I wanted to not stop traffic flow while people looked at the outside items as if they were the only ones, when I had a space filled with them a few steps away. I did make progress in that direction but I still seem to have a blind spot to improvements that I would happily impose on others. It's so much easier to fix other people's problems, it seems.

I really set out to see if I could think of others in my booth design instead of just being my usual self-focused crafter. I made my entrance wider so people could come in, though of course many are still reluctant to cross that invisible line of commitment. Sometimes they go in when I am not there and I sneak in the side door and scare them right out. There are those who have to read every hat and I have to move out of their way and be patient while they do, sometimes allowing me to get a new idea from them regarding what they don't find. I told myself last week not to accept any more special orders, so I just made a list of ideas in case I find some reserve of energy and decide to order more hats.

My typical pattern is to buy a lot more blanks today and then end up with too much inventory at the end. I resist and then do it again every year. Maybe my will is stronger this year. I have plenty of stock, and I get way too obsessive about it. Too much choice sets up a desire in the customer to find the perfect hat, instead of just choosing the one they like most from what I have. I think this is part of the problem we are having around loading out our stock this year.

People who sell a lot of lower-priced items tend to have a huge array of options of these, a real problem when packing, restocking, and maintaining the stock for the duration. We used to say we lost a little on each one, but made it up in volume, and there is a certain truth in the joke. We don't make a lot on each one, and the total inventory gets huge, but we're convinced that if we have all the possible options, everyone will find what they want. For me it seems to spread the sales out so that I sell one or two of each, and can never sell out of anything, so I just keep adding new and not letting go of the old designs. For the last few years I have just been leaving things home, like the last of the kids shirts and the men's longsleeves that are always short on larges, and that sort of space-filling sale stuff. Sure, I make money on it and it does me no good at home, but I end up buying larges to fill the stock and the other sized ones just come back year after year.

Now my strategy is to bring fewer types of items, and only one each of those, and restock every day. I have to say sorry more often, and sometimes I will make a promise and sometimes not. I'm trying not to promise things it is hard to do, like the custom hats people want. Designing and making a screen for a new piece of art is just really hard to do under this kind of pressure.

Emotionally, I am at my weakest this season of the year. It's cold and I don't get the outside time I need, and the stories people bring me can be so disturbing! Lonely women dealing with death or divorce, people barely controlling their PTSD or grief or instability, the occasional heart-warming tale that gets me all excited, and the personal appreciations that are given and received in our community are all atmospheric pressures that float through my corner. We had the annual photo, which seems more giant every year, and we have the annual visits from those who drop in to say their hellos. We get our requests for donations and we make them too. It seems we give as hard as we can, and we do get depleted by that, and at the same time we feel entitled to receive, so focused on extracting the dollars from our guests.

There's a certain amount of cynicism and despair that comes with that. I put up my decorations early and find comfort in the warm lights and handmade treasures I have collected. So much of my joy comes from the Market people, and so many of my burdens do too. We see all of ourselves inside, whether we like it or not. Our generosity sits next to our selfishness. My distress becomes the community distress, just as my hunger manifests as your cookies and my willingness to ask for them. I want to buy from every person I know, and I want them to buy from me. At the same time I don't want anyone else to buy a green tree bag because I am going to run out and then some unknown person who really wants a green tree bag won't get one. It's all very over the top.

So remember to restore your hopes and put your fears aside. Make yourself think of others...if you need help, help someone. If you need love, love someone. Try your best to keep it simple.

I wasn't going to write this week, since it intensifies my vulnerability and I really don't want to be seen quite so much. I do want to remark on all those who are unselfish, buying gifts, sharing their resources, giving more and often, and really thinking of other people instead of how to get more of their needs met. It looks all the more amazing to me from this tired place of Monday. I will keep working. I pledge to pace myself so that 5-day stretch does not ruin the season and set the winter off with painful interactions. Those load-out nights can bring out the worst of us, those low-sales days, those loud music times with the songs we have learned to hate (that wagon wheel song just makes me cringe.) I just want to remind my readers how good you are. When you restore your energy you can be your best self. I have seen you each at your best and that is why I want you in my life. I want to support you in still trying, not letting your compassion flag, not getting discouraged. Remember how great it is to hear your friend laugh from all the way across the giant room, something you can only hear in the hour at the end when the customers are us. Remember how well you sleep when you have worked hard. Remember that pain does pass and the summer does come again, at least it always has.

You're here, alive and well, and that is something huge that not everyone gets to enjoy. Treasure that. Care for each other even when it is hard, because you know it is worth the effort. And take a day off, a real day off. Do as I say, not as I do, as my father used to say. Look at that shiny thing while I drag myself out to the shop to see what I really do need to order. We still have seven more days of selling, more than two weeks of trying to get it right. We can do it, and we can do it together.

Making Connections

I'll try to keep this short, but there are a lot of barely-related thoughts going through my mind today. It's going to be a production day; several of my custom accounts need things printed right now, which is going to mean next week for most of them, but some today. Thanksgiving takes a lot of time, though of course it is rewarding to give thanks and I hope I remember to fit that in amidst the pie crumbs and dirty dishes.

I don't have to cook a turkey, as Tom and Pamela do that, in a finely orchestrated duet which provides many delicious traditional and unexpected treats. I bring the cranberries, both cooked sauce and raw relish, and the pies. I usually make four for them and one or two to put in my refrigerator for breakfasts and snacks during the next week as I grow increasingly exhausted. I feel like my part is a lot of work but it's nothing compared to getting the potatoes mashed and still warm and the gravy just right. Pamela makes a lot of gravy, and at least three perfectly cooked vegetables, all hot and ready at the same time, and her dinner rolls are famous. I realized my pie crust recipe is one of my oldest, from the 1970's, and I might just switch it up this year and use a different one. I'd like a flakier texture. It's an example of how I am, stuck in tradition so deep I don't even see it, and longing a little for change if the risk level isn't too high. People will eat the pies even if the crust fails completely, because pie. And no one would care if all the sides were not hot and perfectly cooked and the projected time rather precisely met, or the cranberries too tart or sweet, but we like to work hard and do our best when we can.

My choices are so very low risk, as are most of my challenges on the world scale. I'm out of cinnamon, but I have three stores within a short walk. I have pears and apples in many varieties from the farmers, and a perfect squash all ready for the spices. I have my set of pie plates that is different from the set I ruined with drying Jell-O. I have the time to make everything without feeling pressured, my inventory is pretty dense so I don't have to print much for the next few weeks, and I have so many delightful choices of things to do in my spare time that I just wish I had more of it. I feel quite lucky, though perhaps not as smart as I sometimes do.

My gridwall of hats almost fell down on Saturday. I thought I reinforced it in a sturdy way so it would be rigid but the hats are really heavy so it was very out of plumb when I noticed it at 10:30 or so on opening day. I had a couple of stop-gap measures I could take, so I propped it up but had terrible thoughts of it collapsing. That would have been really bad for business. It tickles me some that after 40 years of retailing I still don't know how to construct a display properly. I tried something new to open up the doorway to seem more inviting, and it did work to do that, except for the leaning part. My solution was to go home and cut a 6-foot grid in half lengthwise and prop the wall up with one half of it. Worked like a charm, and it was fun to get out my Bosch reciprocating saw and apply it to cutting metal. So much better than the hippie way of digging out the free-box hacksaw and doing them by hand. So glad I learned how to use power tools.

I remember buying that Sawzall after most of the work it would have done had been done the hippie way, when I was remodeling my house years ago. The salvaging phase would have been much more efficient and I'd have saved more boards if I had not been too timid to get one then, but I had to do the project to learn how to do the project and that worked out in the long run. This explains the 15-year duration of the project (which of course is not exactly *finished*) but the skills and confidence have lasted and like most things, I am a work in progress. I still get a kick out of doing the non-traditional, putting on the ear protection and taking a breath and making a lot of noise and dust. I feel like I feel when I ride my trailer full of tubs across the Fairgrounds, with my grey hair poking out from underneath my helmet. Yes, I am an old lady, but not that kind of old lady. I'm the tough old bird type, and proud of it.

I've gotten back into my house research as my free time increases a little and the outdoor work is less appealing (tough luck, leaf pile). I asked the city for Cultural Resource Surveys on some of the houses surrounding the corner north of my house. I am going to be able to document the sequences of ownership and improvement of quite a few of them and prove that the same family owned or built most of them, I hope. The one on the corner of 12th and Van Buren that I call the dairy house is called the Miranda house by the city. They have a lot of the details wrong, and I'm not sure if I will be able to actually correct the records, but I might when I get the whole thing together. Miranda was F.G. Vaughan's second wife and the mother of all of his children (who lived) but the first one, Richey (who farmed down at 8th and Van Buren somewhere.) She did outlive her husband and they probably did call it her house, but there was no Miranda family so no wonder they couldn't find them in the records. I don't know a lot about her except her vital statistics, but there are other threads to follow still. She had a lot of children and some met rather colorful fates, and the Vaughan family is quite well documented and I hope to find descendants. After Floyd's death she moved into a neighboring house or two built by her daughter Grace and her husband Frank Bowers, whose name is all over my house. I'll be able to pin down a lot of details from the building permit records and census records and hope to find out more about her in the process. I'm also fascinated with Samantha Davis Huddleston and her mother Catherine and hope to find out a lot more about them. I identify so strongly with these women and their lives. I think about them all the time as I pass their houses and the trees they planted and I walk on the land they farmed and ate from.

We had a little neighbor party last night and I learned a few details from the occupants of some of the houses. History fascinates most people and a couple of them actually met Grace Bowers and other people in my study. Grace died in 1988 at 103, which is coincidentally the same year we bought this property. All of these people seem just out of my reach, but so close. I know more will come to light as I search, and my theories keep getting more firm and less speculative as I add little facts. It was also great just to know the neighbors and their interests which dovetail with mine. One is a bit of a historian and is researching the Civil War era here, and another restored his house after it was cut up as a duplex and I remember meeting the old woman who did that when a friend of mine lived upstairs. It's fun to have lived in a place for almost 40 years. My whole time in Eugene (since 1975) has been in this neighborhood, on the Huddleston DLC.

I love how things fit together. Like my propped up wall I like to make them neat and sturdy. I can't wait to write the book that documents the ordinary history of my neighborhood, which is also the neighborhood of so many, including the Lane County Historical Museum. So alive. I can't wait to strengthen the ties from the past to the present and future. It connects people just like selling at the Market connects people.

It's a bit overwhelming how many people I am connected to already, how many times at the Hol this weekend someone said to me "Since you're the person who knows everything, what about _______?" I do not know everything but I have been paying attention for a long time, so I certainly have my observations. My booth there is a little bit of a power spot right there by the door, a gathering place of its own. At least three fairly major people-issues occurred there this weekend...things that could have gone rapidly rancid but didn't. Kimberly was fabulous and really earned her stripes handling things with grace and diplomacy. I appreciated being consulted but really, she knew what to do and how to do it. She checks with people to make sure, but her instincts are sound and her ethics are right there where I want them to be, at the top of the scale. I'm so thankful for her leadership, and the collaborative style of it. Saturday Market is solid and thriving, and this will be a wonderful holiday season. We do have to stay calm and be kind, move slowly and be thoughtful. It's not going to be easy as pie, but as I know and you know, pie isn't all that easy either. Plus it makes a mess all over the floor (just like Jell-O art.)

Okay, I'm late to the shop and have to go get that cinnamon. I wish happy and warm times for all of you. If you need me I'll be right there at the Fairgrounds every weekend for what seems a very long time but will pass in a flash. Hope you can keep up. More to come....

Harsh Cold Brings Warmth

Yes, it was way too cold yesterday but we were incredibly lucky that the sun came out for basking. I had to try hard to find something to complain about. Friends and supporters came by, lots of jokes and warm conversations kept us from looking at the clock so much, and somehow we all finished up the day. The cathartic scream at the end was a few minutes early...but 5:00 turned out to be kind of a suggestion instead of a real time. I was off the blocks before 6:00 for probably the first time ever.

And now the pressure-filled week to get ready for Holiday Market and the quick rush of Thanksgiving with its one-day workweek. I'm counting on my obsessive inventory to get me through the first weeks, hoping I guessed right, with plenty of blanks ready to print for the finer adjustments when things sell that I hadn't anticipated.

Even I get a little tired of my preaching but I want to remind everyone to take the time to look within and think good thoughts. Pretty much everyone is changed by the Holiday Season, gaining enthusiasm or becoming increasingly distressed as all of the external messages remind us that we do not have the picture-perfect family or the *right* house and hearth and we mostly don't get the exact gift for someone to let them know how much we care or are willing to make the effort. I would venture to say that everyone feels this stress no matter what their economic status or emotional stability or inner strength. Even people who don't celebrate *our* holidays.

Then layer on the regular life stress of harsh weather (or in the case of the Australians, missing the harsh weather perhaps) and the international germ exchange that is Thanksgiving weekend and you have a great formula for losing your center and acting or feeling rather irrational. You might feel judged or invisible or just wrong or just hurt. It's a lot easier in mid-summer to take your dog for a walk or take yourself to sit by a stream and be renewed by nature, and a little harder now as nature shrivels up and the birds clamor for something to eat.

I know my pitfalls are that I hide out and at the same time feel invisible and like no one really cares what my challenges are, and guilt myself for not setting up the warmth I want to feel. I'm going to a memorial today for someone I feel kinship with, though I wouldn't say we were close. I watched a memorial for her, taped where she lived and was most active, and was touched repeatedly by what the mourners did and didn't say. Her daughter was so eloquent and thoughtful that it made me think I want to prepare a bit more for the inevitable time I shake off this mortal coil.

My friend lay peacefully in her house, undiscovered for awhile, and this is a major fear for me with my tendency to isolate and not check in with people very often. I got over it when one of the participants said what a natural way that was for someone who loved nature so much. Death is a natural end, and even alone a death can be a peaceful passage. There shouldn't be guilt from those who weren't there, didn't sense it coming, or didn't do more to help an isolated person. Guilt is self-inflicted in emotional times, a punishment we have learned to use to (we hope) correct our imperfections. I use way too much of it, and it isn't helpful unless it serves to push us to not repeat the *sins.* Judgment, even self-judgment, is generally projected on oneself just as much as it is used by others. Maybe more.

We are self-destructive, for so many reasons, and this time of year the media encourages lots of forms of self-destructive behavior, from overspending to obsessive dieting to tons of moments of self-sacrifice. In a twisted way it is all supposed to make us feel good, and we sometimes do for a moment. I teared up a little yesterday, several times, when I purchased things like a beautiful bag of rolled oats and some bruised pears that fell out of my ripped plastic bag over at the Farmers' Market. It made me feel emotional to project how it felt to the farmers who had boxes of pears to load back into storage at the end of the day, or rooms full of packaged oats that needed to get to the people who love oatmeal in the winter. I felt bad for all of us who were so cold yesterday, and all of us who have tried to sell outside for so many winters despite the daunting physical conditions, and those who had to make the choice not to sell yesterday. I know how hard it is to live on the edge and feel afraid of falling over on the bad side of it. I have an overabundance of empathy about some things and completely miss others. I can bounce around from grief to joy to despair to gratitude and I am guessing that this is a normal emotional state for most people most of the time. Calm unworried people stand out this time of year.

But we can all give ourselves a break from this type of stress, take it easy on ourselves and just let things be. We can give ourselves permission to share our concerns in ways that don't put them on others, that work with our shared goals and don't just overflow our anxieties into the stream to bigger fears. We can be conscious and giving and use what strengths we do have to keep the bigger boat afloat.

So take a few moments today to sit in that sun, feed the birds (and the pesky squirrels) and allow yourself to remember joy. Remember peace and how it feels, caring without strings and how that gives, love without fear of loss. Do it imperfectly. Shrug off some negative impulse or thought and do something caring for yourself or for someone you kind of like or love deeply or even someone you can barely tolerate. I read a fantastic essay this week which referred to a book by Bob Hoyk, called The Ethical Executive. I haven't read the book but the point that stuck with me was the concept of Ethical Traps. He listed 45, apparently, and it doesn't matter right now what they are, but the idea of a trap matters to me.

You make choices that are driven by whatever is most pressing, and each one brings up another ethical question, for instance the choice between driving and biking, or buying one product over another. I started this week buying products labeled no GMOs. I didn't look at them to see if they were affordable (a $7 dozen eggs is not the most sensible purchase for a poor-ish old person) or if they were local (the eggs were, the chips weren't) and I know my two purchases are not going to get rid of Monsanto seeds. Some of the traps mentioned in the essay were #28: Zooming Out, which means that when you try to take a bigger perspective on your actions you get discouraged that they don't matter on the world scale at all. The little bit of gas I didn't use yesterday by biking is so tiny on the world scale that no one will feel an improved life by me working a bit harder to get my goods to Market. And a bag of chips...so many bags of chips.

This will get way too long if I continue to discuss Ethical Traps in detail, but just consider how many times you trap yourself in circular thoughts as you try to make choices and sort your priorities to serve yourself and your community. I'm going to explore this some more for myself and see if I can release myself from some of those very personal and vexing traps. The wonderful essay was in Creative Nonfiction issue #51 (which I got at the library...814.008 is a great section if you like nonfiction) and no doubt there are many places to read about ethical traps, but to circle back to my earlier point, go easy on yourself.

Be kind this time of year when summer has taken its grace and fled south. Be kind to the birds, to your neighbors (if they haven't raked the leaves off their sidewalk, maybe you could spare ten minutes to do it) and to yourself. Don't get trapped in trying to feel good by making yourself suffer. That's just a tiny bit counter-intuitive.

I'm going to the memorial service to feel good. I've avoided a lot of them in the past in the fear that I would publicly cry (or not) and leave feeling more fearful and depressed about the death than touched by the process and the departed person and their circle. I was afraid of the feelings that might come up in me or someone else. Once I started forcing myself to just show up, I found out that memorial services are not like that. I have never left feeling worse. It has each time been very important to take that moment for the honoring of the imperfect person who lived a life. Instead of adding a burden to my emotional load in a season that is too full, it has freed me from one.

This is something I love about life and why I read nonfiction, the sometimes brutal but always beautiful examination of real life and what really happens. That is the courage of an activist, the courage of Hilary, to look at what is really happening and not pretend things are otherwise. The Christmas season of ridiculous excess and guilt is really happening, and we who sell crafts that are sometimes entirely unnecessary in a basic needs sense sometimes feel trapped in our participation (read: Buy Nothing Day.) We're conflicted, we're confused, but we don't have to get trapped in it.

Keep your priorities straight, and your goals in mind. Surviving the winter means selling our stuff. There are people who want it, people who love us (or wouldn't if they really knew us) and there are still a million contradictions every day to mire us down if we let them. Don't get mired down. Take care of yourself and take care of each other. Be kind and as generous as you can be. Frost is beautiful and spring will come again. Let's enjoy the warmth of a candle, the smell of cinnamon, and the tears that leak from the corners of our eyes when we are doing a simple transaction that signifies a huge step in the right direction for humankind.

Everything is essential and important and at the same time ephemeral and made of nothing that will last. People live and die, give and take. Live more, give more, and try not to get trapped. And don't work too hard. All will be well.

We'll Be There

This will be our last, cold Saturday on the Park Blocks for the season, so everyone is naturally focusing on the ever-so-much-warmer Holiday Market. We'll have the groovy Art Bags http://artbags.tumblr.com/ , a free drawing for customers of high-quality locally sewn bags decorated by 25 individual artists. They were totally amazing last year and so far this year, with new artists (mostly) they are again refreshingly creative. I enjoyed the challenge last year but am happy to just bring my own bags this season. I use the same locally sewn bag, a lovely USA-made canvas bag sewn up to my design in Springfield by T&J Sewing. I'm so proud to have them, and hope to gradually stop using any imported ones. Come see them and help me decide on my next bag design.

We'll have a new backdrop for the stage, painted by Reality Kitchen, which will be a visual treat. See artists at work. The place will be full up with treats, visual, victual, and stuff you can hold in your hands and marvel at. Hand-crafted treasures by real live artists and craftspeople are not just anywhere, and the opportunity to be handed them by the actual artists themselves is a precious gift of the season that you will not find at any mall.

But before all that, we'll be bringing our hearts and souls downtown one more time for that long full day of connecting, joking, singing, laughing, and hugging. In our neighborhood we always show up, and we always treasure it all, and we will be sorry to see the end of the outdoor season. It was a surprising and fulfilling year, what with the successful switch in managers, the sweet move off the county corner with all of it's random dysfunction, and the new relationship between the Market and Fair standards-keepers. We have set a bright future in place for next season. It will seem like the same old place but it is never the same place.

Each person brings a new treat each week, a new self, an insight or a story or a friend. It amazes me over and over and fills me with joy. Even if I am freezing all day and not selling what I brought to sell, I always have a good Saturday. Holiday Market is just a bonus.

For way too many years we tried to sell outside until Christmas, with our propane heaters and our battery lights and our various schemes to attract customers. The year (1986?) we created what we called The New Holiday Market, we wanted to create a new holiday, not Christmas, not Xmas, not the Dickens' Fair. We made something with our collective creativity that was special and fantastic and precious and we have made it better every year. All of us have worked to do that, the committee members and the people who do their work tasks and the excited people who bring their newest work to Standards to be screened. Beth did a lot, so much, did everything to help us raise our artistry and stand tall as professionals and experts in our city, but she did it with us. We all did it together. We are a community within a wonderfully receptive and supportive community, those of us who will be there this Saturday and those of us who used to, will be, and care about us.

It will be good to see you. I'll try not to tell you about the root canal I got today, which turned out to be arduous and an important part of my human education. I'm a person who gets my teeth cleaned every six months and just did not even know what a rotten tooth would be like. It didn't hurt, was just a sore spot on my gum, but shit oh dear it turned out to be a big deal. I guess I needed a compassion adjustment about people who can't afford dentistry. The poor people's dentist would have removed my still-good tooth rather than spend three hours saving it, so because I had some money left from my successful season, I don't have a big hole in my jaw. I will need to think about that. My Mom told me that when she was young on a Nebraska farm, they knew exactly what a bad tooth was and what to do about it. She made sure we didn't know by sending all five of us to the dentist over and over again. Different times, different problems.

A bad tooth is such a little problem in the world. So many have so many much greater problems. I feel lucky today. I biked there, did I say that? Ice was falling off the trees in the woods and on the way home I got soaked just like I did last week. This time I didn't complain to myself, I just felt happy. I told the old men jogging in the rain how tough they were. I felt tough. I am tough. I have real staying power.

And that is why I'm still showing up on the Park Blocks, still loading in my Holiday Market booth for nine hours next week, still so grateful and appreciative of my craftsperson's life. It isn't easy, but it's easy to keep doing it. It's easy to keep loving it.

And that in its turn makes it easy to keep loving you. See you Saturday!

Maker is the Seller, over and over

At OCF especially, my organizations have been spending a lot of time discussing the various aspects of crafting, trying to articulate it in a useful way so that we can continue to protect it. I think hand-crafting needs protections against the many erosions of technology and culture and the ways commerce is done today. You might be aware that etsy, the huge online craft marketplace, now accepts commercially produced items right alongside the handmade. I'm guessing it made economic sense to them, as they had a lot of items on there that didn't comply, and that was a constant problem. It's hard to monitor thousands of people and their products, and apparently a few of them were confused or dishonest about what they put up for sale.

At Saturday Market we are usually pretty clear about the Maker is the Seller, but defining the maker is complicated. Some of us (I'm one) use commercially produced blanks that we embellish, so we don't make the whole item. That's acceptable under current guidelines, but it needs to be looked at from time to time. I don't feel great about it any more, but I can't sew the items I sell, and screenprinting is my craft and I have to do it on something. That's just one person and one issue. You'd be amazed how many nuances there are.

I thought of an image that works for me. As an artist I have a direct relationship with my craft item. I put my heart and mind to it and my hands on it and make it something to sell. This is of course a stronger image with a piece of pottery or a knitted hat, but you can see the image of a person holding an object in their hands. They made it. It wouldn't exist without them. Then they extend the item to the buyer in a second direct relationship. Simple and defined, one person to the other with the object as the bridge. This is what we really sell, that personal interaction. You can't get it from an employee to get that juiciness, or from a gallery, or from an online sale. You can get close to it, but not it. You can only get it in person at a craft fair.

So how far away can you get from that and still preserve the purity of it? Saturday Market allows a family member to sell for another, so you can hear "my mom makes these" or a similar phrase. That's pretty close, but when it's "the person who pays me to stand here makes these" you're too far. Of course gallery sales and online sales help support the crafter, but the direct relationship is less. On etsy I think people like to make a point of putting a lot into the packaging so it really feels like a special item, and I'm sure they put in notes and things to be personal, but on some level it becomes middle distance and then far removed from the source. We don't want that at Saturday Market. We insist on the simple direct interaction.

We have all these specific craft guidelines to preserve that, telling the artist how much of the work they have to do to make the item a craft from the maker. They are online so you can go look at them if you aren't familiar (eugenesaturdaymarket.org) with the details and are curious. It has taken years and years to accumulate them, lots of meetings of the Standards Committee and lots of individual cases to explore and make decisions about. Decades. Hundreds of crafters.

OCF is a bit behind in that kind of documentation and policy, partly because instead of seeing each other every week, OCF crafters see each other once a year there. The direct relationship has eroded. Some people are selling things they haven't made, for various reasons. Some are making them to a degree, for instance they may be solid-color dyeing commercial items, without regard for the fine distinction of the complexity of the garment and the dye job (a refinement the Market has worked on in the recent past) or they might be selling some product they invented but is now being made by contract workers or a factory. OCF does have a crew who looks at the crafts displayed, asks questions, and attempts to determine whether or not they meet the guidelines, but they haven't had the backup of the detailed policies used at the Market.

That is going to change. Crafters and others at OCF are meeting to work out the details on a tuned-up set of craft policies. It's needed and a good thing to do and I'm glad we're putting in the time, but we don't have decades and decades to do it. I feel some urgency, but it's a plodding and plowing kind of activity. Patience is necessary. Most people don't really care and would just as soon get stuff at Pottery Barn online so they don't actually have to deal with a real artist. Plus it will be cheaper.

But you won't get any soul with that stuff. You won't be able to treasure it, to pick it up and see the fingerprints of an artist you know (or knew when they were alive) and to have a role in their life while they have a role in yours. We will lose that direct relationship just as we have with our food (getting that back) and our houses (hardly anyone builds their own nowadays, though you can) and our own souls, which are fed by these satisfying transactions. That's a lot to lose. It needs our protection. We have to care.

Not everyone will. I think minds will be changed, though, as the hand-crafted becomes more and more rare and the necessity for protection more clear. People like me will find better things to print, like the bags I had sewn in Springfield instead of China, and it is my hope that people who have taken shortcuts in their crafting will get back on the long high road. I think I'm seeing that happening. I want to believe that people try hard to be honest and live with integrity, so that those who are telling the large and small lies about their products will let themselves rise to a more pure level of the relationship. I'm going to keep working with this hope in our abilities to improve our lives. We're doing it for ourselves, for each other, for our supporters, and for the future.

See what you can do to help. Improve your product in some small way that you can feel proud of. Buy something handmade yourself, or tell a friend about Holiday Market and go with them there. Maybe you can find something at Market that will delight you way more than the Pottery Barn deal, plus you will get to have a fun and special experience that is way more memorable than one more trip to a parking lot and a big box of a building. With real music made by musicians, and real gourmet food made by cooks. Never the same Saturday twice. Never the same walk around the eight, never the same Fair as last year. You know your soul has been longing for that. Feed your soul.

We have a pope! Err...Manager!

I was supposed to make the announcement on the members' page but I was at the dentist. Such a sense of relief for me last night when the new GM was chosen by the Board. I hadn't realized how much focus I had on that one issue for the last six weeks. Went to bed exhausted, got up all chipper and threw in the laundry before I checked the weather forecast. Wrong order...I don't have a dryer. Didn't realize yesterday's weather was quite that precious, but apparently it will be sunny again tomorrow. Hung the clothes up anyway under the eaves where I have a little line but they won't get dry there. Little problem. I put on my rain gear to bike to the dentist for a cleaning, though my 40-minute ride was quick and dry with a tail wind. It didn't start raining until I set out for home, when I got soaked and had a head wind. So more wet stuff, but I had the rain gear, so I was pretty well off.

That bump on my gum turned out to be an abcess...uh oh, first root canal. Not a happy piece of news. Didn't have enough money for today's bill since I had given some money to a woman struggling with a bag of cans under a bridge way out by Chase Gardens. That is a long way from that redemption center in the industrial zone. I told her there was a 75% chance of rain and she said "at least it isn't 100%. I can deal with 75." That tickled me as I tend to think that way, and I'm glad I helped her a little. The dentist knows I'll pay up next week when I get the big bill. I asked for an estimate...omg. Good thing I had a little saved from the summer and hung onto it so tightly.

So here was my inner monologue on the way home:
Dang it's wet...so glad I have good rain gear unlike all these other wetter folks on bikes.
Root canal...well, it's the first time that's happened. I trust my dentist so I'm in good hands.
Root canal and property taxes, which one hurts more...so glad I have a warm hand-built house to pay taxes on. I can get painkillers if I need them.
Antibiotics...good thing I just bought some probiotics yesterday. They can fight it out.
Got my pile of wet soggy leaves from the city today...got my leaves so I can work outside.
Dang it's wet...almost home and now I have a reason to curl up and take some time off. I can blog!

That is a skill set I have been working on for the last couple of years, reframing complaints so I don't get caught up in my own potential drama. I find reframing one of the most useful techniques I've picked up. I still need a little encouragement to use it sometimes. Complaining is just so easy. But nobody really wants to hear it, and I don't really want people to feel obligated to help me, so it amounts to some kind of self-stimulating in a kind of negative zone. Next step would be not even complaining to myself. That might take some work, but really, isn't complaining just a version of playing the victim? Like saying "all this stuff happened to me and it wasn't my fault." Clearly all the things I had to complain about were my fault. I put off dealing with the mouth sore to save time, since I was going to the dentist anyway. Major error...those things just get worse. I got DIY with it and thought hydrogen peroxide would fix it, or tea tree oil. Inexperience, and not asking anyone for help. Biking, while great exercise and always a good idea, is optional. I could have driven the car. I bought the property and improved the house, so the property taxes were mine. I ordered the leaves.

So at least I wrapped all that stuff up and now I'm warm and have dry socks and I work for myself so if I want to move wet leaves around today instead of working I guess I can. At least I have to clear the sidewalk so I can bike out on Saturday. When it is not supposed to rain, and everyone will be happy about our new GM, and I will be with my community. See you there!

How Market People Can Love

There's a hills song called "How Mountain Girls Can Love" that I was reminded of by a busker on the corner who needed some band members. He sang one of my very favorites, "Fox on the Run" which has wonderful harmonies which he had to pass up as he only had the one voice. I sometimes think about standing in on a song or two but since that would be highly irritating to the performer I always pass. I think about both the ways we can really push each other over the edge with thoughtlessness, and how well we can really relate to each other.

I gave someone a 5:00 sale, someone right near me with whom I could have transacted business during any of the many slow moments...but I caught her as she was going to turn in her envelope. It wasn't ideal. I did the same thing last week with a food booth (though she had obviously seen my kind before and was ready for me.) Both times I kicked myself for not being more considerate. There are always so many ways to improve the market experience for each other, or do the opposite. But Market people are generally so very forgiving and compassionate, and so happy to share.

The spoon picture is of the tablespoon from a wooden measuring spoon set I bought in Boise in the 80's, the one on the left with the chip being the original. I asked Ray from Wanna Spoon to make me a replacement, and I told him it didn't matter what type of wood he used. I never expected the spoon on the left, though! It's so gorgeous and so obviously the work of a spoon master, that I am just floored. He even precisely matched all of the dimensions, something I didn't even care about, so that the set will still match perfectly (each spoon is a different wood) in size, shape, and detail, giving it a couple more decades of life at least. My cooking experience thus enhanced for life by his thoughtfulness. This is how the Market people are.

I also had several arguments, I mean discussions, about the choices of the leadership in this hiring process...which you know I can't talk about, but boy, we can be bullheaded too. We have to question everything, particularly authority, and maybe we have some trust issues sometimes. But all of the concern does stem from how much we care. There's not a lot of apathy in the organization.

Unless it is a rainy day. The vast spaces of empty booth space always distress me on the marginal weather days. Yesterday's prediction was for as much as 50% rain until noon...but there was not a drop, and once the sun came out the day was delicious beyond measure. I brought home at least twenty different types of food from fish to squash to grapes to Schneken. I wrote two haikus for the contest. While I don't care about winning (though the market duct tape prizes are the good kind of duct tape) I could respond to the opportunity to write, all day long. I love to be asked to write something, especially something affectionate or helpful. I love to share in the abundance, and to bring it to our attention how many perfect moments we share.

Beth visited. I never have written the post I wanted to, the laudatory one about what a difference she made for the Market as our manager, what a joy she has been in my life, what a treasure she is both personally and professionally, and so on over the top. I think she knows how I feel. I watched her receive dozens of hugs as she walked the familiar sidewalks and reflected on how extremely loving some people are, how easily they can say affectionate things, respond to each other, show love. I'm not the huggiest of people. I've been called prickly, even. There are others of us who are all the way to irascible and perhaps repellent. But we love them despite that, and they often express their love back, just in different ways. They show up, they stay within their 8x8, they are patient with others who get in their way. They don't bitch about the last-minuting or the parking issues or the way so-and-so reportedly spoke about their work in a maybe misunderstood out-of-context remark or in a real nasty encounter such as we do rarely endure among our membership interactions.  We know we're not perfect, maybe are the black-sheep kind of family members, maybe could be a little isolated and out-of-the-mainstream in our thinking. We accept our differences and try to keep in mind that we are all in the basket for a reason.

So I express my gratitude and love for the Market in lots of quiet ways, my loyalty and my dependability, the ways I promote us to the outside world. I come every week, rain or wind or whatever. I stuck with Tuesday Market for the last many years so that we would not lose the selling opportunity with the farmers. I had my zero days and my discomfort with the farmers who didn't like me or get me, and was rewarded with many gratifying returns for my endurance, not the least of which is a positive budget line item for TM income for this year for the Market. The Market's costs are low there and while the members' costs may be high, it has this season practically launched a couple of food products into the big time and I get the reflected glow as well. Yet both this year and last I have not been able to finish the Tuesday Market season, and hope I am forgiven for putting other things higher on the priority list. Like the manager search.

Which I can't talk about, but just have to say requires some trust from the membership. The decision will be made by the elected Board members, for whom you voted, and the Search Committee is also made of elected Board members, plus me, an elected officer. Trust has been placed in us by our system, which was set up carefully to include accountability as well as security for both the short- and long-term. We have excellent bylaws, guidelines, policies, and practices, refined by 45 years of dynamic operations and steadfast efforts to the goal of survival and prosperity (and fun for everyone, of course.) (By the way, the little parade and song hit some of the most beautiful harmonies ever yesterday...ending with that rising cone of power and that group hug. Delightful.) We are not a crisis-managed, thrown-together type of organization.

We are set up to succeed. I think we can feel that on the Blocks, in all of our little vending theories (yesterday the late Homecoming game and great weather added up to great attendance, but we had to amend our expectation to include the fact that the late game meant many Huskies drove down during the day instead of coming to Market...but oh well, lots and lots of green and yellow). It's there in the rituals of the neighborhoods, the trades, the marriages and children we grow in our midst, the way we bring people up into leadership roles. We have only had two managers in the last 25 years or so...we got loyalty in return for ours, and this is part of why people are anxious. I suppose we could hire a bad manager. I've seen one, in the 80's. Out of 45 years of managers.

But even if we do (and we won't!) it won't break the Market. Nobody can do that. We are as solid as a rock. So many of us caring so much is a winning situation, and the Market itself is set up to last. We're in a refinement stage. Something about this manager change is going to improve us in some way we don't recognize yet. Change is hard but it brings a certain joy for those who look closely. Beth was happy yesterday. We aren't the kind of organization that sends many away mad. She isn't gone, as lots of us aren't gone...membership in the granfalloon is for life. Everyone who has been a part of Market is still a part of Market, even if they came down one day and didn't spend a penny.

Which brings me to the subject I intended to address: how to give back. All of us have noticed how it feels when someone comes to take energy from us. We're beset with donation requests, because we're easy and generous and our stuff looks great on auction tables. We have the FSP vendors who love selling for free and benefitting from the ways we spend our fees to bring people down. They would argue about their contribution and we wouldn't agree, though I love the drums. We have the proselytizers and the unregistered vendors and the shoplifters and the people who come to do yoga on the lawns (who inspire us) and all the many wannabes and people new to town who don't even know how much they need us yet. We have the flash mobs and the demos and so much of what happens downtown that happens because of us.

Because we are there. So the number one way to give back is to come down. Sell or don't, buy or don't, but be part of us. Because we are a gathering, a community celebrating place, an intimate town square where everything can come to the center and mill around. It's a soup of infinite possibility, redolent and warm, spicy and smooth and full of interesting new tastes and thoughts. Everything happens there. We need all the parts of it to stay in place for it to last, to get better and to bring the elegant solutions to the parts that need solutions. We are the village.

And all of our money comes from us. All of our income is member fees. That $10 plus 10% is all there is for the Market to use to buy our bathrooms and our newsletter paper and our office and our Holiday Market. So I shouldn't even have to mention being honest with your fees. You'll see a few lines on your envelope for paying extra too, if you had an exceptional day. If you're taking home a thousand bucks on a Saturday (not unheard of...) consider paying more than 10%. Think about what you just used up in resources to take in that profit. Can you afford a bit more? One way I like to do it is to round up my total with a donation to the Kareng Fund. That's easy and the money goes right back into helping someone survive something bad.

You don't have to give money. Think about other ways to give. Promoting other businesses will help yours as well. Sharing Facebook posts, even just liking them, putting info in the newsletter ads or on the member page, all help your fellows do better. Running for the Board or serving on a committee is sweet, an excellent way to build relationships and learn new skills and levels of understanding, but you can also help our staff in lots of ways. Ask them how. Just making sure you pick up all of your little scraps of paper and wire and zipties at the end of the day saves someone's time. I find it a little embarrassing that we need 3-5 staff people to control our parking at 5:00. Of course since I use a bike I can be self-righteous, and I know it's a fourteen hour day, but do you really have to be the first one to park? Is it really that important to save five or fifteen minutes at the expense of someone else? If this means you are packing before 5:00, you are not helping me sell in that last hour. We still have shoppers at 5:00. Those Huskies who drove down and still planned to drop in at 4:30 need us to be open. Don't be selfish.

You might have a quiet thing you do. One member always sent a floral arrangement to the staff at HM, which looked lovely in the office there on the member services tables.Some people help the Kareng Fund with the raffle or baskets, and the generosity shown in the donations to the baskets is stunning. The art bag project is another way, and you can also make a special product to share the KF or to endow some other aspect of us. You can sell merchandise with Saturday Market or the logo on it (just clear it with staff or Standards) which customers do like. Even just pandering with items that say Oregon or Eugene is helping us be a great destination for tourism and home-ism. I sell a surprising number of such items.

You can hand out postcards or put up posters or just speak well about us whenever you get the chance. You can keep your complaints to yourself once in awhile (this one is hard for me, but I can do better). You can forgive more quickly and love a little more strongly. You can put a dollar in the guy's banjo case even if you don't like the way he sang your favorite song. Every action spreads the love or cuts it short. You know how to do it well. The hippie way is more about love than any other thing, and that little word can mean so much more than what is on the surface. Smile more, if that is all you can do.

It's all the little things, the acceptance, the tolerance, the understanding and even the flaws in what we do and how we do it, that build the community. If our intentions are good, they should wind around and come around and just get better as they play out in all of their associated actions. When they don't, throw some more good intention in that direction. Find one more thing you can do, one more piece of the spice mix that makes us so rich. We are so not about the money. We are so much more than we even know. Jeez I love you.

Gotta go cry for a second and then get out in the yard. What a day off this is! What a glorious life it can be!

Autumn is here

Despite my unwelcoming attitude, the rains have come and summer is gone. I'm not at Tuesday Market today, because I got wet on Saturday and might again this week, and I just can't do that over and over. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the day downtown but I am really, really enjoying the day at home, listening to the dripping. I finished up painting the south side of my house at dusk yesterday, got everything put away, and cleaned up the yard as much as I could. Gutters are clean and tightened up, the roof section that was leaking is not now, and I guess I am about as on board with the earth's journey as I can be.

My son and his wife came down on a Sunday to work all day shingling and that really saved me. That roof project, even though it wasn't the full roof, was pretty ambitious and it would have taken me several more days. Next year we will do the rest; I realized it is 25 years old, just a bit older than my son. Kind of cool that I was pregnant for the first roof and he helped me put on the next one. I guess it follows that he may be doing the next one without me. Guess I have to accept that.

Mom and I have firmed up our plans for our trip to Australia, enough to say that we will go for two weeks. It will be at the end of April so I have time to get ready for that. I'm getting back into my house research as the weather turns, as well as getting my berry patches under control as the duplex next door appears to have sold. The new owners will be surveying the property line and planning some landscaping, and among my greatest fears, possibly a fence. Not as bad as the possible student housing in the back yard that was one dread I had, but I'm pretty sure my berry patch is filling quite a few feet more than the five feet I hope I have on that side of the little house in the back. There's an easement between us, not quite an alley as it is only 7 feet, and it isn't driveable. A fence, if they put one up there, would kill off my berries and my access to them, but I'm pretty sure they don't have room for one.The new neighbors seem quite nice, are very thorough so far, and surely would give me a chance to comment on the possible fence. Nothing I can predict. It isn't my yard. I have to just feel lucky that I have enjoyed the open space and opportunity to garden and share it for the last 26 years. I won't have the surplus of berries again, but I certainly took full advantage of them all this time.

Fearing the unknown is fairly unproductive but I still seem to do quite a bit of it. I certainly have some fears of the known too, but writers are always peering into the darkness trying to see some more details to embellish their stories, so I know how to project difficulties. I've had some difficult experiences lately, and they have proven to be about as hard and complex as I imagined, but nothing to fear. The fear and anxiety are really much more of a problem than the real tasks and situations. Funny how I do that to myself.

Down at the Market lots of energy has shifted to Holiday Market already but that is still over a month away. So many customers asked if last week was the last outdoor Market, but no, we still sell outside through Nov. 15th. Sometimes we get really lucky and have a gorgeous day, and other times we don't. Last week it rained from about 7:00 until noon, so I got soaked and sweaty going there, took an extra hour of setup to make sure everything stayed dry, and then the weather cleared and it was quite lovely. Looks like that might be the pattern again this week. I'll do it. The community gathering is still essential, still lucrative, and the continuity of selling every Saturday is still important to me. I just go, I don't even think about it. Rain pants, long johns, thermos of hot water, nice hot lunch from a food booth, standing in the sun with the neighbors when it does dome out, all make it workable and even pleasant.

It does take some extra strength though. My day last week was fourteen hours, and that is really the hard part, finding the stamina, for us older or medically compromised folks. I see the usefulness of partners, though I still prefer to do it alone. It might be a strategy to partner up with some other old folks in the future though, or with some younger ones. Going off for a nap or just a break could make the day possible when I don't have that wonderful strength and stamina I depend upon. Soon it will be dark when I come trundling home, as it is already dark when I go out to load up. Harder times. Maybe the rewards are that much better when we work harder. At any rate, in a very short time we will have that luxurious show at the Fairgrounds all set up and humming, but in the meantime, I hope people remember to come down to Park Blocks to say hello. 

Guess I ought to suit up and go out to see if all my gutter improvements worked or caused new problems. With two houses there are always parts that need repair. I suppose I should do some work in the shop, too. This luxurious unexpected day still needs to feel productive. If I were really a good person I'd go down to Tuesday Market to support those who did brave the rain. There will certainly be a few. Maybe just one more cup of tea and an internet article or two, though, before I get my feet wet. See you Saturday!

I Can't Talk About It Right Now

What to say? I'm really going to miss Beth...but I'm on the Search Committee for a new SM manager so I can't say anything about it. Everything is confidential and the challenge is to remain impartial and not be involved with anyone who is seeking the job, not give anyone an advantage. This is harder than you think in such an intimate community, where I am certain to know many of the people who apply. But I am determined to do a good job, to do my part to help our organization keep its feet and continue through the seasons for the long haul. So I can't talk about that.

Bags that went around Market on Saturday for Beth

I know part of the reason people read this blog is for reassurance, that we are on the right track and living right, amidst the many challenges we all face individually and collectively. I can report that we are. The whole process is just the way we usually face difficult situations: we look to our structure and policy and just walk through the steps, doing additional research as needed. Our Board and personnel committee took on the challenge and set a process in place. You can view the ad and job description online and applying is easy. Built in are opportunities for present staff, Board and members of the organization to meet the top candidates and express their thoughts. I am confident that our policies are well-thought out and thorough, and that limits my distress to my personal fears about the confidentiality part, and my personal sense of loss that I won't be working with Beth any longer. Those I will just have to handle myself.

So I'm keeping busy canning tomatoes and getting ready for the wetter seasons. I slapped up some paint on Tuesday and got ready for rain, making a list of all the things I had hoped to do in the dry months. Maybe we will get another week or two of hotter and dryer weather, but maybe we won't. My projects will survive another winter.

Canning is messy and takes time but the results are so well worth the effort. I have peaches, pears, a little grape juice, whole tomatoes and juice for the winter, plus all the berries my freezer will hold. These will all be treats to open when I am tired of winter apples and everything being imported from Argentina. Making the effort and then admiring the clean kitchen and gleaming jars reminds me that such efforts really are rewarding when we stop to appreciate them. Yes, go ahead and extrapolate that feeling to the knowledge that most efforts are rewarding if we stop to feel the rewards. They might be hard to see.

For instance, my confidence in the strength of Market policies and practices didn't come from faith. I have attended oh, so many meetings over the last many years, gotten to know my fellow members, had many discussions and arrived at this point of understanding using diligence and acknowledging the efforts of others. Nobody does a thing alone in the Market, or at OCF. Both member organizations have a built in success factor in that so many people are involved, noticing, and thinking, that it is extremely rare that something is really left to individual effort.

This means things can move slowly, but if you aren't paying attention you might think something is being pushed through by someone's ego...I ask you to look closer and ask some questions. What is the history of the situation? Did some of it get started a decade or a few decades ago? Is the work generally done in a committee, at the Board level, or by Operations or management? Does it conform to the bylaws, which is the first law of the organization?

Being on the Kareng Fund Board during the campaign to get the non-profit designation 501c3 has been an educational adventure. We were covered by an umbrella organization for our first decade, but in order to increase our funding base and be able to give more donations, we grew into our own. It was scary but we took the steps as they came and were guided through the regulations, and I committed as the Secretary to making sure I read and understood all of the documents, materials, policies and procedures.  We got the determination letter from the IRS last month, but I'm not finished yet with my commitment. I have to go back and read some things many times to be able to call them up from memory when needed. This has made me more automatic in remembering to look to the bylaws and guidelines of my organizations when I have questions, instead of responding emotionally to my concerns.

The evolution of effective responding to frustration has taken a lifetime. It's pretty easy to set up a rant about the Junkyard Dogs or the Elders or the Management or some other aspect of an organization as big as OCF, that is, it is easy until you get to know one of the people with that label and you hear or think about how things might look from their perspective. I know I am tired of listening to the rants, so imagine how tiring it must be to be a frequent target of them. As a volunteer and officer of these organizations I do feel like a target sometimes, which brings great unease and mistrust. In a rant situation it doesn't matter what my level of dedication, personal integrity, or knowledge is, because I am not really the target of the rant, as hard as that is to remember.

Rants come from the fear place, from the fearful person who does not know the effective, productive way to get their concerns addressed. Blaming someone, railing against *the system* and throwing up one's hands in disgust and dismissal is a pretty easy way to opt out of really being a part of the solution. With these organizations, policy is created and changed slowly and carefully while involving lots of people with differing opinions and stakes in the outcome. Committees hold discussions, try to find agreement or consensus, and then pass their conclusions up to the next level of commitment. Ideally, before these policies appeared to frustrate or scare you, lots of people already addressed the issues that concern you and made a careful decision about their weight. OCF makes effective use of open forums where anyone can come and learn and listen, and be listened to as well.

Yes, they may have neglected to ask the particular you, or keep you properly informed, or get the particular nuance that disturbs you. That, my friend, is on you. Whatever the structures are, including the newsletters, the meetings schedule, the representatives on the Boards, the staffs and offices, all are open to you and will continue to open more as you involve yourself. You may not find this easy. You may feel unwanted, misunderstood, not listened to, or not agreed with. You may be tempted to go away mad and give up.

I've done all of these things, including writing the nasty letters, bringing up the questions I felt so brave to be the first to bring up. Funny now to see how I was just part of the dysfunctional pattern when I did that, something that was not revealed until I had actually rolled up my sleeves and pitched in. When I was an outsider I had a lot more fun, as complaining is easy compared to sitting through hours of meetings trying to find common ground with other people bringing their fears and skills together to accomplish some small step. Changing policy is hard, methodical work. You have to think through many possible repercussions and try to project into the unknown future, keeping the common good in mind. 

At OCF we (the Craft Committee and others) are actually going all the way back to the bylaws and into the history to compile all craft policy in one place, so that it can be clearly communicated, researched, and used fairly. This is more complicated that just extracting lines from the guidelines booklet, and we are deciding on things like the definition of *handcrafted*, and of *crafter,* looking at every single word and making sure it still serves us. Harnessing our language and our publications is challenging and necessary, but it has involved two long Sunday meetings so far, and we have barely begun. I look at Path Planning and Barter Fair Committees and see that this kind of work is not quick work, but ongoing effort. It's easy to see why so many people opt for the rant position.

Facebook has changed us now, given us a place to rant and to draw others into our dramas, but it functions the same way as RL in that other people come along, voices of reason or observers with objectivity, and education happens. Rudeness and self-serving attitudes are exposed and the group agreements are set. At Fair we like to keep the illusions that we are family and treat each other with Fair ethics, and at Market we try to keep each other in the basket and also feel part of a family. Kareng Fund kind of seems like the grandparents sometimes, as Elders Committee probably does. We don't want to let go of what we have built, or what has been built by those who worked before we came along. We are invested, and want to protect our investment.

I would caution here about having a feeling of too much ownership. Sometimes after long years of service, we can get a little too attached, feel a little too essential and thus too powerful. It is a struggle to maintain equality. Elections give us a chance to look at that, decide the line between too much and too little, strive again for balance in skills and dedication to our common goals. Every volunteer should take such feedback in, when they hear it. Everyone should know when it is a good time to take a break, step out and let someone else step in, trust that everything we do can be done by someone else, maybe even bring in someone with skills to share, mentor them.

It is a huge control pattern to think that I am the only one that can do a thing the right way, whatever the activity, whatever the task. Learning to trust others and see their level of dedication and commitment as just as valuable as ours can be tough. Feelings of ownership lead us in the right direction, but they have to be tempered by the greater love for the organization, the membership, and the common good. We may not get what we want, but chances are good that the group will get closer to an elegant solution.

Sometimes it is a great option to step out a few steps and gain new perspectives. I was pleased to find so many good writers in the Saturday Market community recently, when several stepped up to write little essays in the newsletter. I see a lot of members writing in journals throughout the day...I think there are many people who can and do write thoughtfully about these organizations. When I am quiet, and listen, other voices can be heard. I trust that. I even trust Facebook as one way to tease out new ideas and go over old territory in new ways. My need to control things loosens up a little when I listen to other people work their way through tough issues and come to great and helpful conclusions.

Not always. People do make mistakes, as I have and will, but we can accept that too and keep moving in a positive direction. Change has happened. We reeled a bit but pulled together and will stay on track. I am here to reassure you, but you really don't need it as much as you thought you did, I hope. There are lots of good people doing good work. Look around with some trust. Don't bite each other when you are afraid. Don't chew on your own leg, as you are not trapped. Look for an opening, and when your opportunity comes, take it.

Fear/love, same old dynamic. Put away some food for the winter, get out your turtlenecks and rain gear, and keep up. You can do this. Come down to the Park Blocks and be with us. We want you. Find the areas where you can do a little work, and pitch in. It will take the efforts of all of us to really make it good.

Like the bags we passed around the Market last week, the results might surprise you. We are an amazing community. We are so lucky Beth recognized that, rolled up her sleeves and pitched in so effectively. Now it is your turn, and if you are already pulling your weight, thank you so very much. Now, just keep working.

Change, damnit!

Yesterday my writing group met out on the deck and listened and watched thirsty birds trying to be brave enough to get the water which was too close to us for their comfort. Then last night was the first night I closed the windows. Autumn is coming, and I can't do anything about it.

I used to think it was the gradual dying of the plants I love that bothered me, the slant of the light as the days got shorter, the anxieties of going back to school after the stretched out days of summer, the urgency of finishing the outdoor projects...but now I think I just don't like change. Not a new thought.

Yet I don't want everything to stay the same, and I know it won't. I'm bothered by development, and hate to see the trees cut, the old houses madeover into modern-looking ones, the fields turned to apartment complexes. But me being bothered by it doesn't stop one project, one remodeling, and refusal to keep up just causes things to get harder and more frightening.

So it isn't really change I can't accept, it's my resistance to it that is causing the problem. So last night I crawled into bed early and woke in the pre-dawn to contemplate. I put on a turtleneck and longjohns, fleece socks, made coffee, and thought about it. Read the paper...full of change. Thought about the projects I'm currently doing...nothing but change. Felt inside for what is really bothering me.

No one died, well, no one in my close circles, today, but someone will. Maybe not tomorrow, but it's gonna happen. Even to me. No one rejected me, no one "broke" my heart, which can't really be broken, just pushed around a bit. In fact, the change is really not even about me. There's more work to be done, work I would rather not do. Yet if there is one thing I am good at, it is work. So that can't be the problem.

Maybe the problem is the nature of the change. Concrete change is one thing. I moved a big rock, one almost too heavy to lift, but I thought about it, rolled it onto my knees as I knelt beside it, and leveraged it into the wheelbarrow with my pelvis. Put it where I wanted it to go by rolling it over. I didn't ever really lift it up, but rather worked with its weight, applied a bit of cleverness to the problem. Got that sense of satisfaction for a concrete, tangible task well done. So, problem solved: effective change.

But the messier stuff, the people changes, those are harder. What kind of work do you apply to changes involving large groups of people? You almost never get to wade in and start sorting things into piles and assigning tasks to dependable do-ers who will not bother you until their tasks are finished and they need more to do. People changes can't be done by one person applying physics. So what is required?

Patience. You don't know all of the effects of the change when you are entering it, so you will have to wait as more is revealed, clarified, and the tasks you can take up are identified. You might want to remain calm and in a receptive mode while you watch things unfold a little. Panic is resistance. Resistance is pain. Have you noticed when you get an injury that it hurts a lot more when you are scared? Calm down, get some ice, take some ibuprofen, sit down for a minute and let your thoughts slow. Maybe you're okay. Put on your longjohns and close the window. Go to bed early and look forward to a glorious sunrise.

It's still going to be summer for a little bit. We got our first rain on Saturday and nothing really bad happened, nobody crashed and the world moved on. We took off our jackets and resumed our complaining about the 90+ temps. We can do that innumerable times in a season, and we will. Then we'll go inside for Holiday Market and see the new backdrop mural and see that change is lovely, and worth waiting for.

Practice. You have experienced change or injury before. What worked? Who did you call? What was the first step you took? When you think about it, every action you have taken in your whole life prepared you for this present moment. What are the skills you depend on? I know I have a great capacity for dependability, steadiness, honesty. I can be the rock in a flowing stream, I can stay in one place while all kinds of chaos goes on around me. I may not like it, the chaos may resemble icy cold water, but I know how to be the rock. I can practice breathing, listening, looking around. Maybe I'm missing a tool that I need that is right behind me (okay, I'm not the rock now, I'm the tool-user.) But yeah, you've practiced lots of skills for this, and you have a few tools you haven't even used lately that are still there for you.

Trust. The one thing you can depend upon to happen is change. You have made it this far. Trust yourself to make it a bit farther. There is no reason to think you will fail at this next phase, because you have proven yourself to be a survivor. So, look around at all the other survivors and trust them to stay in the boat and keep rowing. (yes, my metaphors are ranging all over the place today, like a little herd of mismatched goats.) (As if goats can match.) There are lots of people who care just as much or even more than you do, and will bring their skills to the tasks. Some of them will even be concrete tasks, not messy ones, and you will find one that suits you and makes it easy for you to help.

Allow. Just because something was not your idea or doesn't fit into your plan, within your resistance you still have the power to open to the change and find the silver lining. You aren't being asked to love the change, just allow it to happen. Don't stand in the way. Be the rock but don't put yourself right in the middle of the road. Don't divert the stream unless you really want the pond that will develop. Let things flow.

Love. An over-used word with too many meanings, but here I intend it to be the antidote to fear. The opposite view, the move around the immovable object that abandons the use of irresistible force and just is. Just look at the problem and think about what it would look like, what it would feel like, if you really got behind it and saw it as the best thing that ever happened. That's a big stretch sometimes, but it reminds you that there is a spectrum of emotion you can apply, and you will do better down at the love end that you will down at the fear end. For someone, this really is the best thing that ever happened. Or if it isn't, it might lead to the best thing. Or if it doesn't, the next correction might be the best thing. You do not know.

Be curious. Turn anxiety and distress into curiosity. What will the change bring? Something unexpected could develop. You want to be able to see it and hear it but if you are not listening and noticing, you might miss it. You might keep going down a hard road when right next to it is a softer path. You might miss some joy while you are busy being angry or grieving or crawling into bed early with your turtleneck on.

Show Up. Isn't this the biggest rule? You have to be present. The change will happen, and it might hit you harder if you aren't there experiencing it when it happens. You might have to add the emotions of missing out, not being part of things, being late to the party. There is bonding that happens when people do things together, hope that arises when allies unite to a common goal. We might really need your skills to apply to this. Be there.

And then. What? Know when to stop writing? Know when to keep quiet and think some more? I'm no expert. This particular change that is driving this post is still sitting in my stomach as anxiety. My heart isn't hurting yet. I think I'm not allowing that. I cried for a minute, but that was relief when I realized I knew what to write about this morning. I know the cure for my stomach is to get up and get to work. Eat some comfort food to make sure it isn't hunger and to sooth the little girl inside, and take a look at today's list. All those items on it will stay on it until energy is applied to them. More items are coming to add to the list. Do one of the ones near the top, or a lot of little ones to make it shorter. Get to work.

That's my sage advice for the day. Soon you will know what I am referring to, and you will join me in taking the first steps to solutions. Take the ones you can take, and don't worry. Don't worry about a thing. All will be well. That is written.