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.