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.