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!