Wishing for a Snowfall

Yes, you know if you are up at seven, watching talking animals on TV and reposting Facebook videos, you are a tiny bit lonely on Christmas morning. Really, I am most happy to have the quiet and solitude I need so much but the bustle of the Holiday Market is fading more slowly this year. I was one of the last two out last night, just taking apart what took twelve hours to set up, loading it on the cart, hauling it across the Fairgrounds to pile in the shop unsorted. I have a few more things to gather tomorrow when we open again for the last load-out of fixtures and debris, then will go through it and stow it away for April.

I counted up the money from yesterday's Basket Raffle and it was a piece of work I was happy to do. As the secretary of the Kareng Fund I have a long list of people to write thank-you cards to, cards I bought from Nancy Bright who would not stop giving me discounts as I paid her. I make it a practice to buy lots of things from my fellow vendors, partly because I want them, and partly because I want to share with them. I feel that when I do well all should do well. I'm not bragging about this, just admitting that there is a place where I am not selfish and I do not complain. It's a glimmer of the better self I have been working on improving for the last six and a half decades. I know you are all doing that too. We all start out with a tree full of presents and gradually learn that what is important is our presence. That and the trees.

This was my first year without getting to hug my son on the actual event day or the Eve. I saw him a couple of weeks ago when he was kind enough to drive down to visit me. I have been gradually getting to this day as we do the letting-go part of our relationship that is the natural way of life. I'm not upset about it, just missing him and all the years of putting him at the center of my life. Now I am fortunate enough to have the Kareng Fund to remind me how good it feels to give and how central to our lives that giving is. Presents finally really don't matter. I did buy and trade for a big pile of them though, and I love looking at every single handmade thing.

It would be work to take photos but maybe by the end of this post I'll be motivated. Each transaction made two or more people feel good and this video gives an inkling of that happy community. Colleen suggested me as a singer, and I said why not? My sister's family has been posting videos of them singing and this is pretty close. http://registerguard.com/rg/video/33890831-319/holiday-market-goes-out-with-a-song.html.csp?autoStart=true

I feel loved. My neighbor came by the booth and we smoothed out the ruffled feathers about the fence. I still hate it but not him. It will be fine. They actually ended up putting it on their side of the easement so I got the use of seven feet of gardening territory which I will use to shore up the tenuous friendship with his sister who lives in the side of the duplex next to me. We are both solitary people and a bit afraid of each other, but perhaps the raspberry patch will be the way we learn to share our lives more easily. He is easy to talk to but she barely talks. I am in the middle. I think it can work, and we'll get raspberries.

Holiday Market is an emotional rollercoaster but when you step off you are always sorry the ride is over. The Pottery Smash and Basket Raffle are both exceptional examples of how generous craftspeople are with each other. We seem to always want to be the ones who give the most. When we trade, each one of us tries to give the best value to the other. We constantly try to give away our work, not because we don't value it, but because we love it and want it to be loved by others. We make such an overwhelming mountain of stuff over our lifetimes, and it goes out into the world with our fingerprints all over it and is treasured far beyond the reach of those fingers. When others recognize what a beautiful thing that is, I just get all teary and tender.

Despite the downsides of consumption of resources and forced giving, I just love Christmas as the turn of the sun and celebration of the year that it is. I no longer get that twinge of disappointment when all the presents are opened and something is still lacking. That void has been completely filled by participating in the giving and sharing of my large and wondrous community. Many of us, alone, fail utterly to feel secure and right in the big world. We are not different from probably most of the people alive in these complex times. Feeling different and wrong is a common thing, and we can all see how isolation and misunderstanding builds and destroys many people who don't have a way to talk themselves through to the abundance and joy that lies there quietly waiting.

Thank you Kareng Fund and Saturday Market and Oregon County Fair and McWhorter extended family for everything you give to me. I feel so very lucky. Now all I want is a snowstorm. I can be patient. If I have to I will wait for next winter, too.

I will have my Jell-O Art to sustain me in the meantime. Once Holiday Market is put away, Jell-O Season begins. The year goes round and round. Seems like a good one. Enjoy!

Having Faith

I want to write. Maybe because this is the day my writing group meets and we are on a hiatus due to Wednesdays being too full of other things, maybe because I see the offseason ahead and plan to do some serious work on my research and book as my house turns 100 on January 10. I have the desire to do the writing, but also the self-awareness to know that my feelings are way too close to the surface right now and it may be better to just hide out and say nothing.

I guess I've said that a time or two in the latest posts. I hesitate and give excuses and don't want to seem too sure of myself. I'm full of misgivings. Part of this is just this season when I would do better if I did not watch any TV and stayed off Facebook and did not read the paper either. I ought to submerge in a good novel. I have been doing a lot of reading, and that feels good, but of course I recognize the escapism. Perhaps more exercise would be better, and if it were not so wet I would spend more time outside in the garden.

My neighbors are seriously talking fence again and this time it seems inevitable. It remains to be seen where and how high this fence will be. No matter how small or transparent it is it will impact my gardens and for the first time in almost 30 years I will be cut off from the open space next to my small yard, which is of course their yard but a space I have been tending and using most of this time. Lots of renters didn't use or care for the space so I would cut the grass, prune the trees, feed the birds, and my gardens extended well beyond my property line and into the easement between us. I don't know if they will put this fence five feet from my shop walls on my side of the easement or if they will put it on their side, giving me seven more feet, but either way there will be a wall there and it will likely remain walled for as long as I live here. I was thinking that would be several more decades, but the yard is seeming so small to me now, and getting smaller.

Development happens, and I keep trying to adjust to it as what I love disappears. That ability to stretch out a little when I go around into the side yard might be gone, as I am reduced to a path threading my way through whatever raspberry and black raspberry bushes will survive the fence and its building. If I get the easement it won't be bad, but if the fence goes in on my side of the easement I will literally have to cry. They will also be getting some little dogs. Nothing I can do about that either.

The theme seems to be about all the things I cannot control. I guess that is my fears surfacing about keeping my own self under control when so many things are happening without my consent or right to consent. I have these squirrels and possums who keep moving into my storage racks. Obviously removing the racks will eliminate the dry spaces for the animals and I could also cut down the ancient apple tree so
they couldn't nest there. I could plant a new tree, maybe one that would give me more fruit. I have convinced myself that the Gravenstein is the oldest tree in the near neighborhood. I think Tillie Van Harken planted it almost a hundred years ago. It is really big. I need to pay someone to shape it a bit as it has gotten out of the reach of my pole pruner. I might buy a new pole pruner to increase my reach instead. I want to be in control of that tree.

Another murder has entered my sphere. I can't deal with it, and completely shut down my empathy when it comes to thinking how impossible it is to cope with these things. Cancer seems like murder as well, and all the environmental catastrophes caused by the greed of people who are thoughtless about the repercussions of their actions. I want to be conscious of my repercussions as well, but everything I buy, do or say seems to be attached to the web of all of the people I know. Doing some good here and there does not seem to be enough. Even the cruelties of aging add to my distress. I certainly see why people turn to religion and immerse so deeply in this fabled birth of a savior. The innocence of a little baby, the compelling stories told about his life, the example of his deep and undying love for us, sinners that we are, thoughtless beings that we are...what a comfort that must be.

Alas, I can't go there. I don't even have so much faith in some benevolent force guiding us as I used to, any at all. The faith I can muster kind of just says "it is what it is." I guess learning to live with this is a worthy goal. Acceptance and moving on and just doing what we can with what we have has to be enough.

I had this feeling the other day, a very strong place inside where I knew what it felt like to be completely alone in a bright, snowy landscape with no sign of other humans, just me, alive and warm in my body in a place of simplicity and survival. There was an exhilaration there and the knowledge that all was right and powerful and nothing mattered in the least. I had a sense of my pure connection with everything there is on this earth and in this universe. I knew exactly how immense this existence was in and outside of me.

I don't know when or where this happened in my past, or even if it did. It's romantic and it's a feeling, not a fact, but I hold on tight to it and the knowledge that I can go there again if I need to. There is a place on a mountain where everything is just and right. It is a place where a person could die or be born, into the greater consciousness that may or may not be a figment of our imaginations. So I hope we get some snow, so I can sneak out into the side yard and behold the neighbor's space and feel it as my own one last time before the fence goes in. I can stand in the middle of my own 60x90 lot and know that it would take a lot to dislodge me from there, the spot I can look up into the universe from and connect sun and earth. Buildings and fences and trees and centuries exist there and don't exist. It's my place to lie upon the earth and open my heart.

It's too wet right now to do that but I can hold onto those times it wasn't, and those times in the future when it will be benevolent and warm again. The fence will give me more privacy, and I will grow to accept it as I have the neighbors themselves. The tree will have to come down at some point as well as the racks and then the squirrels will move to someone else's yard. I can always call them back with more sunflower seeds if I need them.

There are other places where I feel at home on my land: my spot on the Park Blocks, my booth at the Fair, and they aren't really mine, as this property wasn't mine in the past and won't be mine in the future. It's a big thing to accept, that we are temporary on this spot and that we aren't sure what part of us is not, if any. We exist in memory and in the memories of others, and our pure essence may not really exist, except maybe in that long moment when we stood on that snowy mountain, if we ever did. Ah, life. What a trip we are on, what a place we are staying in. I hope that I can be a good guest and continue to follow the house rules, continue to leave it all a little better than I found it. I hope I write things that will honor my memory for a little while after I am gone. Guess that is enough of a reason to put this on Facebook and get on with the work of my day.

Warmth and Colors

So glad I took the time to bring in a fir branch and put up the lights and the antique Santa with his reindeer. My ornament collection is mostly hand-crafted ones I've bought at Holiday Market, with some made by my son in his early years, and it's bringing me a lot of joy. I found a notice on my front door that the neighbors will be caroling on Friday night, and I am super excited and will join them. I love to sing. I know so many carols and harmonies for them from growing up with three sisters, that I am constantly singing along with the tubas and kid's choirs at the Market, confusing my customers.

I'm so glad to have customers. Saturday was as busy as could be and while I was able to do two Sudoku and a crossword puzzle on Sunday, I am happy with how well sales are going this year. It's constantly amazing how many people love to buy these things we make and hope to use to keep ourselves going. I'm closing out my women's clothing and it is a lot easier than I thought it would be to sell my beautiful shirts at half of what they were priced at last year. It seems that when I am finally ready to let go of something I am able to do it. I guess that will be the trick of de-cluttering my life: I just have to be ready for it. If I still think of myself as someone who makes cast paper, I won't be able to let go of the molds and paints and ideas collected for that. As long as I am a screenprinter, I will have piles of screens. I expect that I will hold onto the Jell-O Art and the Radar Angels costumes until the end of my life. I seem to have taken that as an important part of my identity. I bought this new apron to go with this outfit that I wear at the Jell-O Art Show. Costumes seem to be an ever-increasing part of my wardrobe. Here's one from 2012, right after the surgery to take the metal out of my foot. Holiday Market costume themes are pretty fun. I think this one was "Your favorite color," which in my case, was Jell-O. Kim doesn't seem to be taking everyone's photo every time like she used to, but that's okay as we so often wear the same costumes. Everything gets old. I support people who are able to change things up.

Selling at the Fair seems to be something I might leave at some point. Getting rid of the clothing will simplify that path, as it will free up the room to take in another crafter and although I picture that process taking at least another decade (Gawd willing and the creek don't rise) I hope to be deliberate about it so I don't lose the investment of my decades of work out there. I'm already mostly unwilling to rebuild the booth, which is going to have to happen within a few years, at least parts of it. While I'm dedicated to my work on the Craft Committee and Scribe Tribe, it's fairly frustrating much of the time and when I look at the volunteer activities on my plate, that one could go...perhaps to be replaced with another. My work on the Kareng Fund leads me to think I could use that experience to do some other type of philanthropy. Pretty much every organization needs a good scribe so as long as I am willing to type and archive things I expect I'll have skills in demand.

Letting go of screenprinting is a huge change that I am not ready to do, though my body keeps telling me to get with the program of taking an easier road. I enjoy work but not necessarily the repetition. I like the jobs that bring meaning with them, such as the staff shirts, but I recognize that I don't own that one and other people want a turn at it. I have to be poised to let it go. It doesn't change who I am to change the contribution that I make, in fact it could possibly improve the quality of my contributions if I change what skills I employ. Skill at articulation and writing is (arguably) of more value to membership organizations that manual labor, however skilled. I want to do the shirts, and the other crew shirts I do, because of the human connection, but when I stopped being able to do the backstage bandannas it didn't hurt that much. When I see a shirt from one of my former clients I do still get a little pang of nostalgia for that connection, but it really just means I am challenged to make a more personal connection not based on what I do as work but what I do as a person. I could do more social things, go to the potlucks and hang out with the people. It's a goal.

Not today I couldn't, though. I had a hard time talking at times yesterday and I don't even want to answer the phone today. I really need the silence and space after all the bustle and noise. I like the rain when I am inside, and I didn't really mind so much loading in and out in all the wetness. The Fairgrounds is reverting to its wetlands origins with giant lakes and hummocks, so you can almost picture it without that layer of asphalt. Our neighbor who lived in the pink house, May, told me that in the thirties and forties our whole street and block would get flooded like a lake. My yard used to when I had more grass, but now the gardens must be better at moving the water through the soil. The hardest part about this weather is thinking about how hard it is for the people who don't have a good roof and heat and the right clothes to protect them. There are lots of ways to help and lots of people are doing that, thank goodness.I could do more on that front.

I read something that did give me pause, though, and needs some further chewing to digest. I read about the juggalos, a group I was aware of but didn't understand. Can't say I do now, either, but this was a nonfiction report of one of their gatherings, which was of interest to me as they also call themselves a family just like we do at Fair. That insider-outsider paradigm has been bothering me lately. Insiders don't feel like they exclude, but see it all as a feel-great-we-are-connected win that doesn't have a downside. Of course it looks really different to those who would like to come in. We don't want to admit that inside the "Family" we have lots of class and power differences and we like to pretend that it's all about a party. Even to craftspeople the party falls apart, as to us it is our work, and we work really hard at it. Many many people do work hard during Fair and to support it, and there's nothing wrong with making it fun, but we have some imbalances to work on within our organization. We pretend that we are all about love, as most families do. Maybe it is this season and too much TV but I see so much that isn't love-ly. In short, the juggalo family seems to have taken the "it's all good" and "whatever" cultural approaches to the level of extreme Fuckitall. They act out in violent and what seems from the outside to be incredibly negative and destructive ways, but from the inside they feel their own definition of love and connection. It's highly ironic and deserves examination.

I for one am ready to let go of the whole concept of Fair family and admit that when over 20,000 people are involved we need a new word for what is way bigger and less connected than a family. It could be a long look and a lot of discussion but the change is already happening as we become more divided and less able to see the experience of our siblings and the many generations. I'm putting my cynicism in perspective as I recognize the vulnerability and sensitivity of the cold wet dark times, but there's an edge to my joy that it might be hard to diffuse. I'll try to keep enough sugar and caffeine in my system to maintain my hope. I think the neighborhood caroling will help a lot. I hope you find ways to maintain your joy.

See you at the best retail venue in the known world next weekend. If I start to complain just tell me to shut up and throw a full can of beer at my head. Open it first for maximum effect. No, wait, let's defer that whole cultural examination for Jell-O season. Maybe we can work it out in a Radar Angels skit. Let's maintain the illusions. That's one reason we hang those colored lights and sing those pious songs. We need to.

Writing Isn't Safe or Dangerous

I'll take a minute before I start a big day of work to thank those readers who have appreciated me and let me know they are fans of my writing. I got discouraged about the blog, not sure about all the nuances of why, but I stopped posting the link on Facebook and immediately stopped getting readers. That added to my discontent about FB and how we all use it. It's a bulletin board and a short cut and it has made it easy to rein in our bandwidth and limit our input...we let it filter our experience and suffer for that. Yet it is such a condition of our collective life that we love it too. It allows us to keep in touch and think that we are covering all the bases of this complicated social life, but it makes us vulnerable too and this time of year especially I really want to limit the ways I lay myself open to what does not serve me.

I do know that laying myself open is one of my strengths and it is welcomed by others as an example of an almost careless courage that is an antidote to fear. The first time I consciously acted this way was when I was involved in a deep friendship with someone who struggled with some sociopathy. He wanted to be kind and loving but he could almost not help being predatory to get his deep needs met. When I realized that to be his friend I might be prey, I decided to surrender emotionally and not fear my transparency and lack of defenses. I made the choice to open all of my thoughts to him and would send him my journals, first drafts, etc. We actually wrote a sort-of-good novel together in six months that remains one of my most exciting writing experiences although I doubt I will ever get it out and do anything with it.

The interesting thing about predators and prey is that once you manage to move in close to the controller, you become an ally and in the circle you are protected and only the outsiders are prey. Of course the danger is that you take on characteristics and habits of the predator. They seem right and useful. I was able to allow myself to be dismissive and critical and laugh at others. I have that part of me, though I suppress her actively and try to do what Thumper taught me (If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all). I sharpened my wits and my writing got really good and except for the troublesome guilt and shame over being mean, it kind of worked as long as I was in close to him.

Of course that eventually fell apart and he turned on me with a vengeance and discarded me in an ugly way, which did a lot of damage to my psyche, damage I had invited in my naivete. Coming out of it (the whole relationship took half a decade) I counted myself lucky that my trust and innocence was so strong that I was able to still be that good girl, even while tempted to be the inner bad girl, and I learned some fantastic life skills like empathetic listening and the differences between romantic and rational thinking and relationship behavior. I got a great education in codependence and anger patterns, came out strong in my own defense over time and still count him as one of my great teachers and intimate friends even though we have had no contact in many years and probably never will.

It was a terrible example (a good example of what not to do) for my then teenage son, as I was obsessed with the relationship during a time when my son needed a much more focused parent, but then again I brought my son and his friends along in my learning process as much as I could. The struggle for nonviolence in a violent world and the ability to listen well and really analyze emotions and other people helped my son with his own psychological studies of highschoolers and those who try to control them. My son never was someone who submitted much to authority and I helped him get some skills to at least figure out what he was thinking and feeling. It's impossible to say what parts worked and what parts didn't. I took his existential crisis seriously and got him some good allies of his own and I think that really helped the separation of son and mother which we had to get through no matter what. He loves me now, in his mid-twenties, and all is pretty well between us. He is a fine and strong person and I don't have to worry about him.

But I have never wanted to be an authority. I'm okay with being thought of as wise, but some of my writing here has seemed pontifical and romantic to the extreme. I do deeply love the Market and Fair communities with all of our flaws and tendencies, but often I lack compassion for the individuals...at least until I get to know them. Each one has that soft underbelly where their wounded parts are held, and each one can be hurt. Even the strongest and most dismissive of us have that tender pain that they hope no one will see. I hate putting my own out there for people to dismiss. I hate my weaknesses as much as the next person. I despair of my intolerances and hesitate in so many ways to act, fearful that I will be found out and somehow skewered.

Maybe that is why so many people are afraid, to speak out, to ask questions, to persist. Fear causes us to clam up when asked about something we are not sure how to defend. I struggle with policies I don't support, because my respect for the process leads me to think that once a policy is made, I need to get behind it and help with its implementation. The nonprofit policy change was one Market thing I didn't support and hope to see as okay in the long run, but I still feel it was a selfish choice and shortsighted. I notice that one of the main complainers about the nonprofits isn't even selling actively at our Market now, so I feel that because of a small number of complaints we threw the baby out with the bathwater. I may be wrong. I don't have a vote and many people who do, voted, so the group process worked and the decision was made. Whether it was right or not, it was done. It's a year later and even reversing the decision won't help now.

As with the relationship described above, the unsettling parts do settle, and often the right parts do overcome the wrong parts. It isn't that simple as a duality; few questions in life really are dualities. I tried to learn not to think in black and white...apparently that is a fundamentalist and Catholic tendency that we learn and must unlearn. Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell...you can easily see that nature provide far more shades of grey than dualities. Someone said to think in threes. I try to see a spectrum as well. Easy with things like gender...I can certainly see that there is a spectrum of gender-based characteristics that varies with the individual. Same with many human traits; no one is all this or all that. It helps to think in more vague and indeterminate ways, even though it is less secure and safe to keep questioning things. Nothing is all right or all wrong.

So it becomes hard to make definitive statements and I am uncomfortable doing it here. I can't tell you that everything is fine and right and good. Some things are. Some things are intolerable and tragic as well. I don't have the wisdom you seek, or maybe I do have something that will help you along the path. You get to pick up what serves you and discard the rest. I act as a witness most of the time to just try to articulate what seems to be evident and unspoken. I try to be helpful. That Girl Scout stuff resonated deeply.

I'll try to keep putting it out there even when it makes me uncomfortable. There is plenty of important work to do in my small universes. We are going to be called to defend our home in the Park Blocks and we are called to keep our Country Fair on the track that serves the most vulnerable of us. We are all facing death and loss in every way, so we are called to keep our own ship sailing in favorable waters and we are always called to do as much for others as we have the capacity to do. It can be a tiny thing, as those multiply. It can be a big and stunning thing that makes us cry every time we remember it. I was lucky enough to have both of those this year, to be on the spectrum of giving and receiving, and here we are again in the season of giving.

I bought myself a big jar of capers and some pink salt. I think that is all the presents I need. I got thanked for writing. That is more powerful that seeing a published book to me. I have more work than I can do in this lifetime so I see that my life will always be as full as I can carry. I have my gifts. I hope I can share them enough to fill you all up too. Have the happiest highs and the most heartfelt sorrows and keep on going. Soon it will be Jell-O Art season and Opening Day and all the glories of spring shall return. In the meantime, enjoy the hope, the fires in snow, the piles of dead leaves that feed the worms. Don't focus on the parts you don't like, try not to complain too much, and wear something fuzzy and comfortable. Saturday is Wild Wild West fashion day, and Sunday is Faux Fur and Feathers. Let's have some fun in there. Let's try to keep the most important of our senses, our sense of humor, intact as we travel through this often confusing and troublesome life.

Everyone is busy!

Everyone I know anyway, is very busy this week. The three-day Holiday Market weekend went well for me. Sales are up, my feelings of extreme vulnerability on Friday settled out and I had lots of friends coming by to say the semi-annual hello at our gathering place. I'm really enjoying the quiet today although this cold weather is not pleasing me. All of the days we were indoors it was sunny, and today it is not. I need to get outside for exercise and to deal with the leaves and it's a bit forbidding out there. Freezing rain will not be compatible with laundry.

I chase the sun around my yard this time of year hanging and rehanging the wet clothes. Sometimes the wind will help them dry but mostly they need sun. I'm not sorry I got rid of my dryer about ten years ago now, but I might have to resort to going to the laundromat this week as it does not look favorable. Even that seems like far too much work to do at the moment, but I am almost out of coffee so will have to venture out.

It seems like complaining to say how draining retail is but that's a fact for me. I need quiet and solitude and to not feel at the mercy of someone's wants and needs. A couple of my younger friends on Gnome Alley asked Willy and me to be their parents...they were half-serious but it sounded horrifying and welcoming at the same time. I miss parenting. I dreamt I went to church to see Willy speak, which he didn't do, but I sat next to a small family with a baby and immediately picked up the baby and cuddled it to sleep. It surprises me that even though my son is almost 26 I still want my parenting role back. When I really think about it I don't, as there were plenty of hard parts and I still have at least one friend who is completely judgemental and dismissive of the job I did, which of course puts me into a spin. I did the best I could, which was apparently okay, good enough, adequate, and in a few ways really fine.

I never realized back then what parts of the decision-making and life-styling would do the most longterm damage. I was mostly focused on safety and avoiding trauma and treating the kid like a person with his own rights, so I didn't apply enough discipline perhaps. Maybe I was completely right about that, though, as control tactics and punishment are only really effective in the short term and leading the young person to think critically about issues is a far more important life skill than being afraid of what one's parents will think. I was looking for my father's approval decades after he was dead and gone, and that was a fear-based concern. My son is afraid of my judgement about things like him getting an air conditioner. He probably feels bad about using the dryer...well, no, he probably feels like it is essential like most people. I told him that air conditioners were fine for people who lived in apartments built without cross-ventilation and that I don't judge him about things anyway. I love him!

I think my hippie ways serve me well for the most part and serve the earth too, as I make fewer compromises for comfort than most Americans. I've been reading about the Oregon Trail times and the genocide of the peoples who populated this country when the white guys came and every way I can separate myself from the paradigm of white privilege is good for my soul. Of course I can't change my color and being as true to the best aspects of my gender is pretty hard too. I accept that I have many ways to grow to be a better human for the challenges of the times, but I can see that as I age I will have to compromise my ideals in some ways. I drove my car twice last week when I really didn't have to. It made sense to, but it was about comfort more than anything else. I seem to believe that making choices for my own comfort betrays those who don't get to make those choices.

Heart strings are being pulled tightly and this season makes it worse as the things that renew me are dying too, my garden plants and the birds. I found my yellow-rumped warbler dead. I put out four cards in the vendor center for losses of community members and three were for deaths. The Kareng Fund met and discussed four grants, when some months we have none. I shudder with my empathy for those undergoing losses, knowing that I will not be free of that kind of loss. I don't know why I expect to be. I'm getting more resigned to it, more aware that loss is part of life and distress about it makes it worse. Acceptance does not have to be cold. There is warmth in talking about it, giving hugs and listening time and allowing the openness of bringing it to each other. That kind of comfort is right and can be indulged freely and often. One friend suggested that a Death Cafe would be a good step: a gathering where all subjects around death could be discussed and analyzed. I'd go. We've all learned helpful techniques for navigating loss that can be shared. It isn't going to be avoided.

So on that note I will embark on my day of restoration. Quiet, keeping the heat turned up, putting things in order, and reading will help with so many things. All the rest of the days will be work days, probably packed with details and I need this day off severely. Don't call me. I'll see if I can make time to go through some of my warm clothing and find some things to give away. Shedding possessions is getting easier. Making light of things helps. I'll decorate my Christmas branch. Hope you all have a great week; see you Saturday!

Move Along

Okay! We wrapped up the Park Blocks season and said our fond goodbyes to selling outdoors for awhile. It's so different at Holiday Market; a whole new set of problems. Yesterday was not rainy, not cold, and there was a decent member and customer turnout. People even came who had not been at the Market before. I gave out lots of HM postcards and told my potential customers that I'd have a lot more choices there in the hat array. I will have a lot more, though I will try hard to limit myself so my booth isn't so packed there isn't room to see anything.

I still struggle with all the difficult things, but I feel a lot better than I did last time I wrote as the pattern played out and things smoothed over again. I thought about deleting the last post as people worried about me, and that wasn't my intention, but clearly I was still in the pattern when I wrote it and when the storm ends there is always regret, apology and depression about being unable to really change significantly. Damage is there, although having that does give more understanding and compassion about the damage in others. It's easy enough to see but not easy to deal with, to counter or assist or support those suffering from it.

I wish I could tell young people to be more careful, that injuries sometimes don't really heal the way we think they will. My foot continues to hurt so much at night after standing all day on concrete that I simply can't walk on it. It hurts the next day too. It's hard to deal with pain, so I get how it is for people with much more serious pain than I have. You want escape, you want relief, you want to go back in time and not do that to yourself, and you want to fix the pain you have caused others. Not much you can really do. You keep moving and hope for the best. You do the little things as they present themselves. You try to stay positive and not "present with your damage" as everyone has their own piece and really they don't want to hear about yours, at least not in detail. Yesterday both Raven and I got trapped by several individuals who don't seem to see themselves getting in the way of our sales and the work we are there to do. I rescued him twice by letting the people know we needed to focus on our jobs and stop chatting. I tried to get out of the conversation I got trapped in and finally the guy said something about how he was talking my ear off. I let him know that yes, he was, and I hope he was able to stop doing that to others. I doubt he was. He had a huge need to talk about his passionately held opinions. I'll be avoiding him in the future. It makes me wonder how much of social anxiety is caused by a lack of skill in turning off someone's enthusiasm in a way that doesn't hurt them. Maybe we're just as afraid of hurting others as we are of getting hurt ourselves.

But enough of that painful stuff and on to more fun and warmth as the winter sets in. Just being able to work indoors more is a relief as I have plenty to do. There are a couple of outdoor projects I still have to finish this week and my leaf delivery from the city will probably come. Loading in to the HM is a huge day on Friday and by next Monday I will want to have nothing on my list except cooking for Thanksgiving. I feel a little grim about the workload. I feel a little old about how much my life seems limited by work. I've been turning work down...trying hard to say no to things that add to the list. I want to get to the happy positive place but the words aren't coming. Maybe pie will help.

We do have a lovely Market family potluck on Friday at 6:00, in the middle of setup, so maybe I can get some warm fuzzy feelings from that. Maybe today I will do less. I have to finish a library book that is due, and maybe I will allow myself to do that today. I need a nicer boss. I don't like complaining but something is making me do it, something more than habit and something connected with pain. Maybe I can focus my need to work harder on working harder to have ease and fun and let go of some of the drive of the 40-year-old and think about some of the joys of being 65 instead. We'll see. Maybe I'll cook up one of the beautiful squashes I got from the farmers' side of the street and test my recipe for dairy-free pumpkin flan. I think eating less pie crust will allow me to eat more pie. Pie might be the key to my happiness this week. I hope you all find the keys to yours.

Keeper of the Common Good

I was "a fucking wedding cake, okay?"

Let's see, how to write about a problem I'm having in abstract terms, following the thought process I went through last night and pretty much all day yesterday? It's all tied in with other Market issues that I've been chewing on for the last few weeks and which have prevented me from wanting to write here. It's psychological stuff that is strong enough for a therapy session, so I want to use the tools I have and the process of counseling to get to the crux of it without going into the details.

I use journaling every day to put things into a concrete format for me. Something about forming coherent sentences gets me to frame my thoughts into useable chunks that I can examine both in and out of context to find the truth in there. Yesterday I also walked into the Empathy tent and used it for the first time. I thought I did what most people probably do: go in and try a little to get someone else to fix my problem for me.

The listeners were great. All of my fellow vendor listeners were great, too; no one fixed my problem. No one even gave me any advice. The listeners in the empathy tent did one thing only and that was listen in a very engaged way, allowing me to talk freely and at length without interruption, and then reflect back with anything that stuck out as a complete emotion they could describe. I remember the woman (sorry I was too upset to ask her name) saying "It sounds like you need some support." That's right, I answered, my mind searching for what kind of support I wanted and from whom. I sorted through a couple of possibilities, knowing that it was my problem and getting support that amounted to fixing it for me was not a good solution though that might have been available (like calling security or management to take it on as their problem too.)

I only spent about five minutes in there and another ten minutes maybe, complaining to friends about it, but those short intervals helped me to look at the problem within the context of my day. I was upset when I should have been focusing on my work, there in my workplace. I should have been engaging with customers and showing my products I had worked so hard to bring and display attractively, and on the next level it was time for me to get my afternoon coffee which I indulge in only on Market days and highly value as one of those rituals that matter. My cup was in the booth and my booth was full of the problem of the moment, symbolically telling me that my place was in my booth and this problem was displacing me from the day I wanted to be having.

So the listener said, "It sounds like the day is hard enough without this added on." If I had been in a therapist's office that would have been the moment I would have cried and elaborated on how hard my day was at the Market, the twelve hours, the rain, the 75 pounds of sand I have to bring on rainy days, the way I had to bend policy to get my booth to fit in the space now that we are not allowed to put anything in the fountain (one of my corners is in the fountain, which used to work okay with one leg of the canopy in the moat.) But I didn't want to add to my problems by crying in public, and I didn't want to add more caffeine to the mix either, knowing that would not calm me down and it might contribute to me saying things I couldn't take back. So I didn't just go get my coffee. I hung around other vendors until the situation had played out for about twenty or thirty minutes and then I checked in on it again.

I was angry, but didn't want to admit an emotion that strong, so I diffused it to words like annoyed and disappointed but really I was shocked and my gut was churning with anxiety and anger. I couldn't see it until that evening when I was getting soaked unloading my trailer thinking my rambling after-Market thoughts, but my particular type of PTSD was triggered and I was about as vulnerable and at emotional risk as I get these days. Which you might not even notice except my frown keeps coming back. I've gotten a lot better at putting the hormones on hold until they dissipate and I can deal with the underlying issues. That's called self-control. I used to get X's on my report card on it in the early days.

All day people were saying, "I hope the rain holds off until 5:30," or assigning other times when  it would be okay with them if it rained. I don't get finished being outdoors with my stuff until 7:00 at the earliest, so I would merely reflect on how our experiences differ and not say anything. I had my rain gear on. I don't like to one-up with hardships. I'm well aware that everyone has some hardship which is far more weighty than mine. I'm in a great position in my life in many ways, and it seems like whining to mention that I went to the dentist at 8:00 am for an expensive crown the day before, or I had a bowl of ripe tomatoes I would be forced to deal with on my day off...or that I had spent hours on Friday trying to get a stray traumatized cat out of my shop...I really don't have hardships like many people have hardships right now. Getting soaked while unloading at the end of the 12-hour day is just part of my life. I try pretty hard not to be constantly complaining just for something to talk about. So I didn't want to complain, and on any given Saturday I try to remember that. But it was the last day of October and a harder day than those lovely summer ones when the problems are mostly things like remembering to stay in the shade. Plus my foot hurt.

So while I had some self-doubt that I was over-sensitive, the situation was really not workable and I did need some support. I also knew it was my problem and I had to deal with it. The other people weren't seeing the problem. I was shocked and dismayed by that, as I had thought I had made myself clear (I was saying, "about thirty times," to the listeners) and I was hurt and perplexed that my concerns were repeatedly dismissed. I wasn't sure why I had to repeat myself so many times with the same information, the same logical points, the same declarations of what I thought were clearly described emotions, and make the same agreements only to find them dismissed the next week. "You sound like it feels frustrating," and some sympathetic looks and pats on the arm were helpful but to cut to the chase it was clear I was going to have that same discussion again, still somehow hoping it would finish this recurring issue.

So I kind of did, as it couldn't really be avoided (my fall-back tactic for difficulty). I made my same arguments and talked about my feelings with the people involved, but it went south. I'm going to hold the juicy stuff for now because it's intensely personal and off the subject of this post, but I will say that the insight did come to me in the rain that night as I was putting things out to dry and thinking about eating a bowl of heirloom popcorn for dinner. I usually bring home dinner, and I was planning to that day, but that was another way my day was changed by the hour in the middle when I had to respond to the situation imposed on me. I didn't get to control my schedule or my actions or my plans for the day, which isn't that surprising in the context of a day spent in a public park on Halloween in the rain, but that was really the crux of the problem: control.

I've studied control tactics a lot. I am extremely sensitive to controlling people. Lots of blocks in areas of my life are dominated by irrational, controlling people trying to impose their will on aspects of my life that I want my own control over. That's a simplistic view of how things operate: sometimes people are in charge of things and sometimes they want to be, and sometimes they use tactics that are skilled but less than fair and just. Some people manipulate, and they generally have a structure around that to soften it, put it in a more-or-less supported cultural context so they can get their way. At the one extreme is the person who murders women and children he thinks are his possessions to dispose of. This happened this week and happens all the damn time and is a big black dangerous hole for me that I try not to look into. It's a terrifying mindset.  That wasn't happening, but it was lurking.

There is a range of lesser behaviors that stem from that entitled and powerful position and rarely do I really have to deal personally with the life-and-death levels, but frequently I have to deal personally with people who take advantage of flexibility to impose their will. I go to meetings where people come and rant about some personal problem that they think ought to dominate the group process until they are satisfied somehow. I get emails where fearful people try to block group process because they aren't in charge of it and don't want to admit they don't have anything useful to add. I see people try to manipulate others to love them, take care of them, give them something they haven't earned, or just give them attention. Being on the sidewalk with my creations puts me in a very vulnerable position to view these manipulations and there is always some portion of potential or actual customers who try to do those things. They want the best of my work but they want a discount on the price. They want to dominate my attention while they pretend to choose something, but then they make an excuse to walk away without buying. Some of it is innocent, and some of it is calculated. Sometimes I can laugh and go along with it to a degree, but sometimes I get thrown right off my feet by it.

So yesterday I was thrown off my feet, and the person who was doing that was was using the controller language and tactics. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't recognize it, but that is the complier making excuses and part of the pattern. I think Halloween was definitely part of the picture in that I was feeling that thinner veil, when these predators and controllers of the past were lurking, coupled with the oppressive weather and my deep concern for everyone out in it and how hard their lives were. I had a long chat at the end of the day with someone I know who is living on the streets and will probably be there the rest of his life. I know emotional issues are trivial compared to life and death issues and the whole reason I am giving you this long version is my way of taking a counseling session in an indirect way. Maybe it was the position of my Kareng Fund letter in the Weekly below Sue Sierralupe talking about Occupy Medical. Yes, we do a good thing giving money to craftspeople in crisis, but Sue gets in close proximity with people in great pain and saves their lives. I admire her so much, and anyone who can do that deep caring work. Way more than I can do! People do what they can, but some try a lot harder than others are willing to, and I'm not sure I measure up at all.

But despite all of the surrounding ugly and horrifying truth of the day and the deeper levels of the problem, the insight I had is that I spend a lot of time thinking about and acting within my self-appointed role as keeper of the common good. I tend to the Market community and my OCF community and my Kareng Fund community and my Radar Angels community and my own family and neighbors and I am generally compelled by the underlying impulse to take care of all the people. I want to be one of the ones who gives and not one of the ones who takes. I want to be one of the very large group of people who have the energy and thoughtfulness and abundance in their lives to take care of others and make their lives easier. Though my efforts are minimal compared to Occupy Medical, we're on the same team.

I work to expand that and do more of it, and I work to counter my own selfishness and neediness and set those aside for the general common good. Of course as a human I have a limited capacity for that and need to be refilled with the goodness of others and the caring pats and looks that help me, but I am continually wishing that other people would tend the common good and am constantly shocked and dismayed when they don't. And I think the key to why that particular situation yesterday was so hard was that the other people did actually also believe that they were tending the common good. They were giving what they had to give and it confused them that it wasn't well-received.

The visitors to Market and the customers see what they are adding, so very apparent yesterday with all the costumes and families with little kids who brought them there where we gave treats. The entertainers bring their music to give it. The farmers lay out their abundance to share, and the concept of money is a facilitator that is a bit outside the intention of the tending, but it colors it in a problematic way.

The people who live in the park everyday see it as home. They are reluctantly willing to vacate while we use it, and we feel a certain level of priority for our use because we rent the space. We use money to control it. We expect a return for that, which is roughly translated to sales, but we also expect control of the space for our narrow purpose. We resent the people who pass through with their dogs in violation of our rules, and we really resent the groups of people who talk loudly and with profanities about their highs and pursuits of them in our space while we are using it. When they settle in on "our" benches we call Security. We feel that we should get to say who uses our space and how, so we have our raft of regulations and guidelines to enforce that. It seems right to us, but obviously not to other users of the space.

Others who also consider themselves part of our community don't see the difference between those who pay and those who don't. The people who sell at FSP see themselves as part of the Market while we see them as parasites. Though we pay the lion's share of the costs of managing the garbage and bodily wastes of all the people who use the space, (me, with my fees) the ones who use the facilities don't see the difference between paying for it and not. The farmers come over to use our bathrooms and our recycling, and the drummers feel like they bring something to add that is as highly valued as my dollars that I earn and use to make it happen the next week. All of the visitors probably expect some gratitude from me for what they brought. I am grateful, but it's not a simple exchange.

So we are all involved in creating the commons, and there is a dangerous and slippery slope where those who pay for it feel more involved or more privileged than those who are just using the benefits of it. It's a subtle difference that is not really apparent, but it's a different mindset. While I see my 8x8 as a space I pay for and thus get the right to control, how far does it extend? I'm paying for the whole four-block area in one sense, and if I were paying to park I'd probably extend that zone to the parking garages too. I feel that, but it's invisible to everyone else. I allow myself to feel an ownership and position of tender that I think is more powerful than someone's ownership and position who does not pay those fees.

It can't be that simple but it puts me into a spin about it all. How much do I really control and how hard do I fight for that? Can I extend it outside my 8x8 and if so, how far? That is why we have four hour meetings. We've had forty-five years of discussions of this very issue translated into many facets and forms. The recent internal issues were really about that: how far should one person's control go before it becomes violence against someone else?

It disingenuous to call everything violence that isn't peacemaking, but hurt is hurt and part of the tending is protecting others from hurt on any level. I am on this earth to make life more wonderful for everyone I touch, not the opposite. I'm not here to challenge you or force you to improve or coerce you to do what I want you to do. I'm not here to sell you something you don't want. I'm not here to solve your problems and I really don't want to be creating your problems. It's a lot of work to avoid creating problems for other people, but that is part of what I do. I want to keep my 8x8 clean and leave it better for my use of it. I want respect for that.

I want respect for my space and my purposes, and I am willing to extend that same respect for you if you will stick to the agreements we have made. If you are not sure if we agree, we might not. We might need to have a four-hour meeting about it. I'll try to hear you in the meeting, but I do not want to do that on Saturday when I am already working as hard as I can to do what I went downtown to do. It's a lot. It might look like selling hats to you but I am sheltering and nurturing a sweet and precious space for about a thousand people (at least) to be vulnerable and safe at the same time. I need to feel a balance there, to have a balance in my life and a feeling of control and safety about my choices and around my heart.

So yeah, it's about a lot of other things, a bigger question, as the discussion reveals each time we have it. I don't concede equal rights to my space. I have a lot going on in there. I'm in charge.

It reminds me of something that stuck hard in my mind when I was trying to move into a relationship with someone. We were sitting in my kitchen which was full of stuff that looked like clutter but was really about four crafts in progress at once, as well as headquarters for a house remodel and a single parenting of a teenage boy. I had a lot of things on my refrigerator held on by a lot of magnets. This person started taking things off my refrigerator and putting them in the trash.

In my confused state I merely took them out and put them in a box and tried to explain that I liked a lot of visual stimulus and that might look like clutter. I continued with trying to have the relationship but really it was over at that point whether or not I knew it. Don't like my refrigerator decor? Bye. My refrigerator, my kitchen.

Control. We all try to have it, but we don't all try to use it. There's a line that should not be crossed. Lots of lines, constantly being redrawn invisibly, but like a grid of shifting permissions and consents. Don't diminish me, don't dismiss me and don't come into my sphere with your violent intent. Damnit. Definitely don't do that on a Saturday. That is when I am my most vulnerable, but that is also when I am at my most powerful. I have stood there for forty years now, and I know what it is all about. I know what is right and wrong about Market. I might not know what to do in the moment, but my gut feelings are fully developed in my role as craftsperson-superwoman-tender-and-keeper. You are lucky to have me, so don't mess it up.

Don't be selfish in the most open, non-selfish community gathering in the known universe. It's about giving down there, not taking. I wish there were a way to convey that more strongly than giving things away to little kids, but that was one good way. I thank all those wonderful parents who brought their darlings to me yesterday so that I could do that in a concrete way. Thanks too to Sue Theolass and Sue Hunnel who both made special trips to bring me little beeswax candles and cool beads on strings so that I could give away handmade treasures. I am especially grateful to one Mom who saw the wrinkled brow of her little daughter when I gave her a candle and said "Don't eat it!" The mom raved over the beeswax, the smell of it, and promised to tell her daughter all about the bees who made it. So much more precious than a fun-sized Snickers. That's the way I want it to be. I really hope a lot of people want that too.

Assumptions and Agreements

Of course I am being forced to think about violence again as we all are if we use media and I find myself in the "numbed to it" category. I don't want to read the life stories and see the photos and especially don't want to hear the underpaid spokesmodels of the TV news ask people how they are feeling. Irrelevant and crappy! Yet violence is there as the subtext of modern life, levels of it present for me in just about all of the subjects I was journaling about this morning.

I notice the mention of the frustrated sense of belonging that is projected onto those disturbed enough to act out violently. There was a guy at the Market yesterday who was loudly being weird...asking everyone for a Sharpie and talking nonsense as he was moved to the perimeter by the constant pressure of the security guys. I wondered if I should give him my Sharpie to prove to him that I was listening. I didn't think that through, knowing I would probably not get the Sharpie back, but forgetting that the $2 or whatever I paid would be of much less value to me than the inclusive act might be to him. But I didn't want to include him in my world. He was stepping on my plans for the day, to quietly sell my goods, and he was scaring me with his lack of consent to the agreements of my community so I wasn't sure what he might do with my black magic marker.

Early attempt, 1985

I make stuff up, and have declared that on my shirt many times. I couldn't find the one upon which I screened a little Saturday Market basket over the word "up" so it neatly said "I make stuff." I dredged up a few of the other Market shirts I've made over the many years instead. I hope they illustrate how hard it is to describe or encapsulate Saturday Market. I've never been able to do it more successfully than "I make stuff." That's what we do, then we gather together to try to sell it to people. Seems simple until you add a few hundred and then thousands of people into the equation. As Beth used to say, "Welcome to my world." Things inside my eddy may be fairly calm, but all over the Market and surrounding blocks randomness is occuring and people are doing and feeling things about which I have not an inkling.

 I've been thinking a lot about unspoken and unwritten agreements and assumptions and how we tend to operate from them without noticing. I've been told several times lately that I am speaking as if everyone thought like I think, and even I can notice how sometimes I can be pontifical ( and not enlightened  Francis-y) and self-righteous. One of the OCF Board candidates (Terry Baxter) quoted someone as saying "Every community looks like a club from the outside; every club looks like a community from the inside." I found that extremely relevant to situations of anger and defensiveness. When people feel excluded they aren't usually happy to go. They generally are hurt, and feel the lack of justice, fairness, due process, or some such framing that left them on the outside when they wanted to be on the inside. Even when the distancing is unintentional or just hesitation like me with my Sharpie, it can come off as rejection and the less confidant tend to take the most offense. Sometimes a cascade of exclusion occurs: a closing of ranks, trauma-bonding of those most affected, or lots of complaints from lots of people tangentially affected by various aspects of the issue that have varying degrees of even being related to the main issue. Gossip happens, private or secretive discussions ensue, and a general feeling of being unsafe or simply fearful is put in place of the previously happy coexistence of the affected group. If that guy had been allowed to continue roaming the Market with his aberrant behavior, he had the potential of setting off that kind of cascade: angry customers and vendors whose plans were disturbed, fearful parents and children, accusations of kitty abuse (he had a cat in a carrier that he was telling to come out and fight...) and the calling of higher authorities. The Security people did what they do to remove him from our midst, and I assume he took his behavior to some different groups and gatherings to see if he could get his needs met, though they were far more complicated than his need for a black magic marker.

Front of Magic shirt.

I engaged in a mediation session this week, my first, and while all of the content is confidential, I can talk a little about the process. The first thing that warmed my heart was that the mediator at the Center for Dialogue and Resolution said that like Saturday Market, their group had roots in the counter-culture of the late 1960's-early 1970's. As a staunch advocate that the hippies were right, I was encouraged by this. Some of the values I learned during that time have served me well in life and I try to promote them. I also assume other people know them and operate by them, which is of course one of the flaws in my life that I continue to work on. I am often shocked by the mainstream world that doesn't get what I see as simple stuff. It made me want to think and write about some of the assumptions I carry about how Saturday Market (and to a degree, OCF) functions as an organization.

Back of 25th Anniversary shirt, 1994 or 1995

I think we are founded upon and promote equality. We each get an 8x8 space. We each pay the $10 plus 10%. This is not completely true for changes we've made like adding the 4x4s, which pay $5 plus 10%, and the food vendors, who are asked to contribute more to reflect the services they need and the higher potential income they attract. But generally we are all viewed by the organization as equals, with equal rights, responsibilities, access and opportunity. This state of balance is carefully tended, but often gives rise to disputes and accusations that some are "more equal" than others, when access to parking, decision-making, or other issues comes up. Assertive people can dominate the more docile, and people who have been volunteering a long time sometimes are more familiar with the workings and can have an easier time getting their needs met because of that knowledge. They know whom to ask what specific question to get a helpful answer. I'm guessing you can think of an example of this, particularly with an organization that is as large as OCF. If you ask on Facebook for someone to add you to a crew (I saw a recent request for the "Art Crew") you will likely get silence and no one willing to start to craft for you what will be a long answer. Go read the guidelines. If it isn't spelled out, read the members' website. Ask a dozen people and see if you get fewer than a dozen answers. It is easy to see why a complicated entity like a membership organization fails to enthusiastically welcome each person who knocks on the meeting room door. It's open, but you have to bring some things in with you.

If you come down to sell with me on the Park Blocks, as an individual I will be nice to you, but I have my own set of rules you could violate since there is no way to explain them all to you. I have a thing about musicians who use plastic containers to collect donations or otherwise show me they aren't putting any effort into their presentation. I will usually give them a hat instead of a dollar.  If they don't get the hint I kind of punish them by withholding my dollars. I'm not saying it's right, but I expect something of people who come to use the space I'm renting for their own purposes. At least put on a good show!

 Fortunately for me I don't bring a car so I don't have to engage much in the parking struggles, but for some of us with well-established routines, if you park in "my" parking space at the time I want it, I am capable of coming out of my tired and anxious mindspace to be angry with you. I might be in the habit of bending the policy to meet my needs and I won't enjoy you innocently pointing that out. Mostly at the beginning and end of the day we are stressed and have lots of details to juggle and we just want things to flow smoothly. It doesn't take much to innocently or selfishly disrupt the routines of everybody else in the neighborhood. Parking is just one part of the unspoken net of agreements: each neighborhood has probably established a workable sequence of use for the limited spots and people are more or less flexible about it. As a group we try hard to use signs and encouragement to get people to think of others but there are constants like people shopping at Farmers' Market (which opens at 9:00) and the shuffling of spaces that cause pretty continual potentially unpleasant interactions. Agreements around that get a little wambly, like "that is okay for that person since he gets out fast and opens up the space for everyone else but it isn't okay for you" and "he gets mean so we just let him do his thing" and other less-than-fair but fairly functional agreements. I'm not saying it's fair practice. The agreement that we all stay open until exactly 5:00 pm is related to that. Some people just don't. I tend to frown at them, but when it is my turn to have to try to get somewhere in a short time frame I might bend that policy too. It's a guideline, not a rule, right? We all are capable of rationalizing our choices about the many agreements and policies.

The thing with hawking comes up a lot, especially with products that make a noise or smell. Those have been recent issues that came up with a somewhat violent (I have a broad definition of violent) process, partly due, I believe, to some unwritten and unspoken agreements. If we are all equal in our 8x8s, it's the practice that you don't let the sleeve of your dress that you hung out front hang over into your neighbor's display space. There are probably about as many adjustments to those agreements as there are neighbor relationships. I made myself a rule when I moved into the space next to the shakers that I would not get annoyed at the sounds of the rattles or the little kids who have to try each one, or the way Raven plays along with whatever music we are hearing. That was already in place when I moved there, and I couldn't find a way that it hurt me. The same with Willy's drums. If someone is playing too loud or long, I know Willy will get a handle on it as I know him to be thoughtful of the neighbors over how much he wants to sell a drum. I trust him to take care of me. I willingly acceded to a bit of compromise of my equality (not much right to quiet in a public space) and made some agreements of my own, like keeping my bike and trailer in the space behind David and Cheryl's, space they might have wanted to use themselves, and using the open space next to me to project out a little with my tote bags, telling myself that putting my promotional Saturday Market materials out there (I sell the SM totes and give away postcards and maps) will help balance the use of that extra few inches. In all of these examples workable compromises were crafted with those immediately affected but I certainly didn't ask everyone if it was okay with them if I made those choices. That's pretty hard to do with the changing landscape down there and I'm not sure what I would do if there was violent disagreement. Most of the violent disagreement has the immediate result of one of the parties absenting themselves from the Market for some period of time, willingly or not. Selling privileges/rights are conditional. See page 8 of the Member Information Handbook.

Last attempt, not sure when, but I don't think I ever put them on sale

Trust is huge. There are as many as 300 artisans, hundreds of support people and staff, and thousands of customers and people-watchers trying to enjoy the same time and place together. That's not even the full size of our community, because we have an international public and everyone who has ever enjoyed Market feels a part of that. We even have people who make it a point to seek out Saturday Market just to experience it. So really we all ought to be thinking of all of these people with our actions and words, and that puts me as a participating individual right at the bottom of any hierarchy or flowchart you might want to draw about the community. Each individual has all the rights and all the responsibilities to that group experience. In the moment we vendors often feel the most vulnerable but we're solidly members of the club. Imagine how it feels to be a hesitant person coming for the first visit. We can be a scary place if you don't understand that safety is a really high priority for the organization, especially if you think that the FSP is part of our monitored area. Shit happens over there and on the surrounding blocks that is not under Saturday Market control. That marker guy (and people's dogs, friends, and second cousins from Oklahoma)--- not all that controllable.

Yet of course I am paying to be there. I am contracting for a certain set of services and conditions and it hurts me in the wallet when those are compromised. So my rights were maybe a half-step above the magic marker guy. He needed friends with pens; I needed and expected a lot of other things. It also lends a tone to my acceptance of the selling activities on the County land across the street at the Farmer's Market and the Courthouse Plaza. I love the farmers as they bring me food and customers and color and a connection I find vital. We generally share the same agreements, with a few sticky areas that lie in the background, but we have a long history and tend to support each other. I don't feel a lot of support from the Free Speech Plaza attendees, although I am one who likes the heartbeat of the drums.

I resent the Courthouse Plaza activities (with the exception of the drum circle) and really wish the County would step up and deal with it. We had to have millions of dollars of liability insurance to just have our 10x10 Info Booth there (we've moved it) and no one there is accepting any responsibility whatsoever that I can see. I have to admire a friend of mine who went over there last week to make his peace with it. He recognized his resentment and anger and thought he had better get to know what was really going on there.

Of course what he found was a more human experience than he had wanted when he thought he could dismiss them. We kind of see our younger selves in some people, when we were just starting out as craftspeople, desperate for sales, inexpert in our offerings, trying hard to find a place, broke and sometimes somewhat broken. There's a bit of a community over there, something more than random people taking advantage of a free zone. Saturday Market doesn't allow everything to be sold; we have strict guidelines about handmade and maker/seller issues, so some people are there because we exclude them. They want to be with us and that's as close as they can get. Some people are simply opportunists and don't want the responsibilities of our club. But few of them are bad people and mostly they are not out to hurt us. They mostly don't think about us and out needs, being focused on their own needs. They might end up joining us when they get the money together to advance their artistry and step up to our level of selling. They might be willing, or are already working within our agreements. It isn't any one thing.

We have some unspoken agreements, and a handbook full of written ones, which all members are asked to read and agree to. The handbook spells out a lot of things that shouldn't be in question or cause disagreement, including a Code of Ethics and Conduct. It offers the seed of dispute resolution and explains that Market operates on the honor system. Honor the system by learning what it is, participating in its refinement by serving on the policy-creating bodies of the Board and Committee structure, and then follow the policies: that's what's implied. Members are clearly asked to do these things and contract with their membership payment that they will. We've gotten that far. No one but members probably even knows about the Handbook and all of that policy written by dozens or hundreds of people over the years.

With those who are not members, we are asked to be patient and human. That is a big part of our challenge in trying to do our business by renting the public park. We're not in a vacuum. We have to respond to the needs of the marker guy and the guy selling across the street without a permit. It isn't a formula for an easy day and is part of the exhaustion we can feel on Sunday morning when some things did not go well the day before. Each individual who enters our club wants to be a part of it on their own terms. It is when we allow the boundaries of our club to be fluid and accepting that we truly act as a community. Individuals come and go, but the basket is always full and keeps getting bigger. We must coexist and we must invest the time and thought that takes. The elegant solutions will not be found unless everyone brings their piece of the truth and is willing to speak it, whether with words or behavior, whether with silent assent or sometimes violent disagreement.That's the stuff of human interaction and of constantly building and protecting community. We're doing it so the club will continue. To the members, it is our lives in the balance.

It's never the same club meeting twice, never the same community gathering. Each week brings high and low points while we learn how to live and work together. Each time we look at our actions and thoughts in light of our written and unwritten agreements, we get a little closer to the world we want to live in. We're creating it all the time. It's a good thing we're so good at being creative.

The Light is Changing

I'm not such a big fan of Fall. I've probably mentioned that before. It's mostly because I don't like to be cold and love to be hot, and the seasons aren't going to support that for awhile, except for these September and now October afternoons. Of course it's pretty pointless to fret about the weather and the way the earth is tilting. It might be more productive to learn to adapt to it and find things to enjoy about it.

So I get out the longjohns and turtlenecks and I even turned the heat on once. I can still open the house up at the end of the day and get the hot air in so I'm still pretty happy. I like all the nature things that happen, except the dying leaves part, though they're interesting and beautiful. A big grey squirrel is trying to move into my yard or my block, and it's interesting watching the little resident squirrels try to keep it out. I dislike how the squirrels eat all my food (strawberries, raspberries, apples, pears, filberts, everything but the tomatoes) but they can be amusing. The towhees are back and I think I heard a varied thrush. I love my yard even though it is way too small.

My world is kind of small I guess. I think that is a result of trying to create safety and a measure of control for my own comfort: emotional control and financial safety and physical safety. It's essential but I sense that it can take over sometimes as I fear things more: aging, health conditions, random stuff that could happen but actually probably won't. Fear might be more of a habit than a response. Fear of the unknown...but isn't everything unknown, at least to a degree? Turn anxiety into curiosity. I wonder if the squirrels will switch nests and maybe move away? Could happen.

I am going to be singing at the Lennon Birthday Show, with the Slug Queen and the Radar Angels. I totally love the singing part. Rehearsal tonight was beautiful, lots of wonderful harmony and it's easy to love songs by the Beatles, particularly John Lennon. He has been a hero to me for a long time, and Yoko is too, for her courage and strength. It is always fun to sing that music, and there is so much of it. I'm really thinking a lot of my brother-in-law Mike and my sisters and Mom and all the many times we sang Beatles songs. We used to sing Blackbird a lot, sweetly. Mike is in a band called the Buntles and he probably knows all the lyrics to all of the songs. I wish I had him to practice with. We have one more rehearsal and are not all the way sure what songs we will do. Across the Universe for sure, with all those poetic lyrics, which has been fun to learn. We are also going to do Can't Buy Me Love which is lively and we'll probably have to get together some choreography with it. Who knows what the third song will be? I hope it is one I already know or I'll be singing along with YouTube a lot next week. The show is October 10th, on a Saturday, so it won't be easy to manage that day. I can do it though. I know I want to, and Indi told me tonight that the apprehension and stage fright really never go away, so there's no point in letting them keep me from the stage.

I need a costume plan to settle me down. Seventies mod psychedelic hippie Radar Angel. Sounds easy except that I have nothing suitable. I might though, put away in the clothing I've saved because I couldn't let go of it. I don't have my patched bellbottoms, too bad. Don't know where they went. They probably rotted. I must have something. If not, it is a good season to be putting a costume together, and that is something I enjoy that might balance the fears. Balancing the fears with fun is a good strategy. We were talking tonight about being 97 and still dressing up and performing skits. I can totally see that, so I had better keep this going and really get good at it.

Better keep working at balancing the fears with curiosity and openness to the good parts of the unknown. If everything were known it would be terribly boring. I like thinking of every moment as a new one that has never happened and won't happen again, but the mundane takes over a lot of that time. There's not much different about doing the dishes, or printing more of the things I have printed before. The moments run together and then the season is changing again and another year is added onto all of our ages. It goes fast and there isn't time for everything. It's hard to fit in all of the important things, whatever they are.

Sometimes the most important thing is sitting on the deck in the golden afternoon light. Sometimes it is going to a meeting to tend to other important things. Sometimes it is going to bed to be ready for the challenges of tomorrow. But there is a show on about the beginnings of Pilchuck glass studio in the 70's and now I have to watch it. I guess I'll sleep when it gets colder.

Empathy

I find myself extremely delighted (I feel delight!) that at the exact time when I find the most people I know feeling overwhelmed and distressed, an Empathy Tent is opened down at the Saturday Market! If there were ever a perfect solution for a difficult problem, this is it. My only wish is that it would be so well-used that it would be open and staffed every week and made a permanent, essential part of the Market.

Long ago there was a booth called The Lucy Booth where advice was offered for 5 cents. Evolution of counseling and human interactions has made advice a quantity a bit less useful, but the real activity that went on then and is going on now was, and is, listening. Simple focus and compassionate listening to a person with a problem (or several problems) is known to be far more effective than many other calming techniques. It matters a lot that someone cares.

Mark Roberts, who had the vision and energy to start the Empathy Tent, is a longtime practitioner of careful and compassionate listening. His older brother suffered from polio which he did not allow to stop him from engaging fully in life and he set an inspiring example of overcoming obstacles and encouraging others to do the same. Mark took up the challenge to move obstacles with personal power, and by engaging others who share the goals of improving our lives for a happier world, he has opened many avenues for people to help themselves find workable solutions to whatever they face. Obstacles are problems with solutions. Steps can be replaced with ramps, door handles with automatic openers, walls can be fitted with doors. It takes will and it takes action, and all of it starts with defining needs and working to solve problems, one step at a time.

The first step is figuring out the need driving the distress and the empathy of a caring listener can be so helpful in figuring out what the underlying need is. Humans can complicate their experiences and layer distresses very effectively, masking their real needs and putting up their own walls to stand between them and getting what they need. We all experience the subtle ways we get in our own way. Often we can't see through the distress to identify what are feelings, misconceptions, assumptions, or denial of what is really bothering us. There are a multitude of ways we can confuse our issues and overwhelm ourselves, making logical choices and actions really hard to find.

The compassionate listener doesn't tell us what to do or what we are feeling or thinking. In my experience, a good listener might reflect what she is hearing or what appears to be the presenting emotion, or just offer a kind look or word to encourage me to go further with my presentation of what's wrong. I am the one who has to feel my emotions, sort them out, and figure out what action I can take to fix my problem. I'm not helpless and don't like the feeling of helplessness, so I don't generally ask for help. I might start to act out my distress: withdraw, get angry at some frustration, take out my frustration on someone else in some altercation that I am drawn into seemingly without my intention. It's easy to take a further step to blame whatever or whomever got caught up in my acting-out. None of these actions bring real relief and can be very distracting.

Years of experience have taught me a few things to listen for to help me see I am irrationally acting out instead of feeling my actual feelings. I might fall into some negative "cognitive errors" (lots of online sources outline these in further detail. I linked to one but haven't really read it...just a place to start.) These are common ways of thinking that take us further away from the problem-solving and into the distress. For me they are commonly control fallacies like thinking I am the one who has to fix the problem, and I can't, or catastrophizing (the Market will die because of this!). I do lots of other things like making things into black-and-white dichotomies that don't have any nuances, (polarized thinking) or magnifying the negative without remembering the positive (filtering). These ways of thinking are easy to fall into and culturally available and supported, particularly if you watch television. All the sit-coms and soap operas display actors falling into these avenues of error and we might see these actors as role models. It seems okay to freak out and do things and then apologize or pick up the pieces. We call it "losing it" or "blowing off steam" and it isn't even seen as violence but we are taught we are helpless to change that pattern and that it is "hard-wired" and helpful. Increasingly we witness people taking their stress out on others and it is so harmful and destructive. Often people just walk away shaking their heads, unable to respond. We aren't taught more boring, productive ways to solve problems from sources such as TV. In fact, these events are juicy and entertaining and often make the news. You don't generally see news stories about people who engage in warm problem-solving interactions that de-escalate the distress and calm the participants so they can think clearly.

But through people like Marshall Rosenberg and countless others we can be introduced to way more productive ways to make life easier and more productive without so much of the stress and distress brought about by our thinking errors and assumptions. It's really rare that someone is out to get you. The post-office clerk or the grocery checker isn't doing or saying things to mess up your life, they are doing their work within the confines of their job situation and they might be as unhappy as you are on that particular day. You might display behavior that pushes them into their own stress reactions. It's your job to get the skills to keep your stress and issues from hurting other people. To do that job you have to do some work.

Whether you do that work in years of private therapy, in a discussion group, or in your chair with a book or the internet, the information is out there for you to learn the skills and there are lots of people who are willing to support you while you learn to practice it. Just reading about it doesn't make you able to use the skills in the situations where you need them the most. Generally, I have found, I need some other human to listen to me and hold the space for me to hear myself. I can (most times now) hear my assumptions surface and my illogical thoughts without much prompting, partly because I am an artist and my brain is trained to look at problems from lots of different angles while I try to figure out the creative solutions. Emotional problems are simply a different, more nebulous set of challenges than artistic problems, and if you don't have the skills it will be like a jeweler trying to build a rack without the woodworking tools to make it easy. I've done lots of things with bad tools and then redone them with the right tools and been amazed at the difference.

When you try to  hang a door or even change out the lockset with a dull chisel you will probably split the frame and make a messy hole around the lock, as well as mis-align the parts so the door won't close well. I have several doors in that condition, as I built this house with few skills and learned as I went. The last time I did it I was much better at it than the first time. I got better tools, learned why they need to be sharp, and was better able to use them in the proper ways to get a more finished result. Emotional issues are similar. While yelling and driving someone away may solve the immediate problem of the irritation you are feeling around them, it shifts some of your irritation to them, to people who had to watch you yell at them, and on down the line. They might take that stress you handed them and take it out on someone else. Most people are really good at personalization, taking everything that happens and thinking it is mostly about them. It is easy to set off a chain of negative thoughts in them, thinking about the things they should have done, the ways they should have defended themselves, taken control of the situation, or taking on the hurt and feeling like an inadequate person in some way, internalizing the conflict to hurt themselves.

If you could have taken your frustration to a listener and worked through it to let go of it, you could have addressed the actual problem with the other person, if there was one. You could have owned your frustration, felt the irritation as something you were believing in (not an actual fact like the temperature), and faced the issue as something that could be eased. Many of us are not in the habit of owning our feelings. Even the simple language of talking about feelings can be improved. I read a great article about phrasing yesterday: the subtle difference you feel when you say something in these three ways: I am delighted; I am feeling delighted; I feel delight. The first two created a little distance from the feeling (delight) and the third connects you to the emotion in your body and is a clear declaration of your experience. If you substitute "frustrated and frustration" into the sentences it is a little more clear. What Vika Miller says in her blog is: The first phrase ("I'm delighted/frustrated") uses English in a way that says something has been done to us, and that our experience is static or ongoing. I AM [fill in the blank] says that I'm this way all the time; it labels me and tells my brain that this experience is all there is. Both of these slow or stop the flow of Life energy ...

The second phrase ("I'm feeling delighted/frustrated") lets go of this labeling, this linguistic permanence, and acknowledges that what we're experiencing is a momentary experience, rather than what we ARE. But, it still suggests that something has been done to us.  The first one allows more energy to flow, while the second one still limits that flow somewhat...

The third phrase ("I'm feeling delight/frustration") focuses our attention on the present-moment experience arising within us, allowing all the Life energy to flow freely.

Her point is mostly that the language that we use really matters in the ways we communicate and process our emotions. These may seem like very subtle fine points but I wanted to show how the basic owning of one's emotions can help greatly in communicating and solving human-interaction problems.

Trying to find a way to control the forces that act on us might seem like our job and might seem overwhelming, but most of the ways we have learned to exert control in our society are by oppressing someone else. Most of the things we encounter cannot be controlled. Most of them have to be dealt with more creatively than that. Thanks to the internet and to the wise people in our community, we have lots of ways to start thinking about these more elegant solutions and our response to the complications of our lives. What we say and do is important, and when we are next to each other on Saturdays, in the state of vulnerability that we open ourselves to each week putting our creations on display, we are all at risk of hurting ourselves and each other if we cannot stay in our most loving human state. I'm not saying it's easy; far from it. I have to talk myself through something every week that could derail me and send me into negative thinking. I use the good listeners in my neighborhood and my friend group to help me regain my rational thoughts and not go further into my irrational assumptions. I talk to Mark, as I am lucky enough to be a friend of his and he is very generous with himself.

If I am stuck in my booth with no neighbors I'm comfortable with, and the pressure of thinking I have to be there to serve my customers above all, I can go off the rails. I see it in someone every week. Some of us are more fragile than others, more or less grounded, more or less clear in a particular moment or time. Autumn stresses me and I don't like to be cold. I worry about the declining sales on the days with the early football games. I worry about lots of things. But worrying is focusing on an outcome I don't want, so I try to use the skills I've gained to redirect my worrier warrior. I can't control the weather or the football schedule or the customer or my neighbors or much of anything besides my response. That I can, with support
, learn to control. If I do that imperfectly, I am a human being. I don't really believe in perfection.

So what I'm saying is hurrah for the Empathy Tent, and I want to encourage everyone to stop in there for a moment or several. Use this terrific resource Mark and his associates are kind enough to provide us when we need it so much. Use the available resources. Learn more: Oregon Network for Compassionate Communication. Read more, think more, even feel your feelings more. Don't think you have to tough things out like a pioneer or a buccaneer. We live in an age of abundant resources. Give yourself the gift of empathy. Take care of yourself, and that will make life more wonderful for all of us. I pledge to do my best to do the same.