Old Ways

Ah, summer is winding down, long before I am ready. It might even rain on Saturday! Of course rain is really needed, but we also need the Saturday income flow...but Sunday, rain on Sunday would be fine with me. This past Sunday I actually stayed inside because of the smoke, reminding myself how much bad air we tolerate already, not so much here, where the smog isn't visible (yet) but in other places, cities mostly. One of the reasons I seldom drive.

Had an interesting chat yesterday with my neighbor at the Tuesday Market, a person half my age who is a woodcarver. He's very dedicated to the handmade ethic, thinking hard about how he can make things more handcrafted in his life, not less. I draw great hope from young people who take on the hippie values (which to be honest were probably just traditional farmer values that the hippies adopted along with all the other cultural appropriations of the alternative culture.) Certainly the direction away from more mechanized solutions to everything is my direction. I got rid of my clothes dryer at least a decade ago, and don't miss it. I have a clothesline and know how to take advantage of the weather, even in the winter. I enjoy the biking and walking and even how long it takes.

We talked a bit about the politics of the Markets and Fair and the things that have changed over the 40-year history that I know and it was hard to pin down any separation or real change. Visually, almost everyone uses pop-ups and most of the change has been so gradual it isn't noticed, but the hard parts are mostly hidden. The laser cutters and 3-D printers and other forms of automation have crept in, though thanks to the dedication of a few there is at least an awareness of it. Personally I think laser-cutting needs to be eliminated from the handcrafted market, but I can surely see how computers have aided and not always subtracted from the ways we do things. Defining "handcrafted" becomes more challenging with every meeting, for both Market and Fair, and it will be a long process to dial things back if indeed we can. He and I talked about how a person can only make so many things in a day, and prices can only go so high. I bought a cool little coffee spoon that I had been wanting, which will fit inside my coffee jar, but how many people will pay $25 for a thing you don't actually need? Maybe a lot, as the real handcrafted things become harder and harder to find. He doesn't even sand, but uses sharp tools to smooth the utensils, and they look and feel wonderful. I know I will get more than $25 worth of pleasure out of the spoon, and will have it forever. That means a lot to me.

My hope is that people value such things increasingly, but I might have to stay off places like Facebook to hold onto that hope. Every time I look there someone is saying things like the smell of line-dried sheets is amazing but they prefer the softness of those tumbled in the electric dryer. Walking is good but cars are convenient and necessary. Doing things by hand or in the old ways is too hard. We are too soft. I'm getting to be a crochety old lady about this stuff. Work is supposed to be kind of hard. Of course my work ethic is really puritanical. I do get lazy too, and there are things I will have to give up. I try to channel my fantasy Tillie Van Harken sometimes, the woman who lived here for almost twenty years and likely made many parts of my house be the way they are. She didn't even have running water until maybe the year before she died in 1942. That means she had an outhouse, heated water on the stove, and did all things inconveniently.

As far as politics go, apparently little has changed as well. I got the "while-you-are-packing-up-I-will-rant-to-you" lecture at the end of the day on Saturday. It seemed to be focused on the opinion that I am too nice and won't admit that there are people who are devious and evil and would kick other people out of Market. I am not inclined to ascribe evil motives to Market people, that is true. I make excuses for them, that they don't hear well or have good social skills or are too isolated and don't see the big picture. The gossip mills turned in an ugly fashion on Saturday and there are a couple people convinced they have to fight for their Market membership despite the fact that nobody said or is planning to kick them out and that isn't how we work. I insist on that. Like the fact that we try to work toward consensus in all of our efforts, which is largely hidden and not spoken about much, we also work very slowly when we sense important change or irrevocable actions. The whole fight for the handcrafted is a glacial, careful process.

I dislike the getting offended and going away mad thing people tend to do. It's human and happens all the time but I always feel the failure of framing that causes that reaction. These people need the empathy tent! They need to talk about their feelings and fears and shift their perspective to see the salient points and real problems and to not be caught up in those fears and emotions. It's common but not that hard to break through to better understanding. It just takes time and listening. My policy with the rants is always to listen as well as I can and point to the fears if I can, hoping to diminish them. Fears persist though. What happens is that people cause the exact outcome they fear most if they proceed to think that way. It's needless and sad.

So I hope the Slug Queen Markalo Parkalo the Empath comes back to Market this week and all of these people find their way to his tent. Empathy and good listening is needed, as well as a re-grounding in the nonviolent and compassionate. Yes, there is a problem, but yes, there are solutions still out there we haven't found together. No one needs to do anything rash or irrevocable. We are a process in motion. Wait a bit if you don't yet see it. Ask a few questions instead of making so many assumptions.

Yesterday Rich brought down his guitar for a bit of singing at the end of the day, and it was really fun. Let's all sing more. Let's look around and see what is great and working well and try not to complain so much. There is a lot of good happening all around and it is lazy of us to forget to celebrate it. It's our habit as humans to want improvement and progress but there's time to think about it a bit before we rush in and mess it all up without a solution in mind. Let's not break things we can't fix.

Like the old ways of hanging up the clothes and canning the tomatoes, things take more time to do in the traditional manner. I found it fun to get a chance to talk about the alternative culture as an old culture...it must have been something back in the mid-Seventies when the hippies gathered in Eugene and started to change things. I'm sure we were viewed with suspicion and dismay by many until the common ground was found. On that score little has changed. I'm certainly not convinced that the student housing developments and the prevalence of heat pumps and air conditioning is good change. I have to allow that some of the things I protest will indeed look sensible and elegant to me over time. I pitched my fit about the weight bags only a few months ago, but now I take my bags to the Market and strap them on, and I like them. Last Saturday it got pretty windy and people were holding down their booths, and the big one over at Farmer's Market almost went over again. I saw the usefulness, practicality and safety of the weight bags and I wanted everyone to have them. That's only one example of a change that only took me a few months, but one I couldn't imagine back in the winter when the idea surfaced.

So maybe some of the other things I fear and don't understand will become clear. Maybe I am indeed too nice and we have some devious forces that need exposure, some wrongs to right in our little community. I'll keep watching, but I don't see myself becoming less trusting of the good and honest forces among us. Help me out with your sensibility. Go to the empathy tent with your fears, instead of spreading them around all over the rest of us. Do your part to make us stronger.

And conserve water and power. We are going to need it, because that rain on Saturday might not appear. Predictions, like fears, do not always come true. Good thing.