Surprises Every Week

The combination of routine and the unknown every Saturday Market makes for an unfolding mix I can't resist. So often I wake tired and unwilling to mount the energy I know it will take, but I learned long ago to make no decisions in the morning. I am going. Coffee and sometimes bacon are needed and when 6:45 comes I log out of Facebook and go load up. My Tuesday commitment is only slightly less concrete. I am continually surprised at the sources of pleasure and food for thought (as well as the body) that float through my booth neighborhood. Never two days alike. Nearly always soul-stirring as well.

Yesterday so many things happened I won't be able to report on all of them. The Slug Queen did bring the Empathy Tent as well as playing onstage with his Sunday band, and I'm enjoying Markalo Parkalo immensely as he brings his style to the public. I have admired Mark Roberts for a long time due to his commitment to compassionate communication (NVC inspired by the great Marshall Rosenberg) and his own brilliance and sense of humor, as well as lack of ego and male dominance paradigm...he's just a stellar person who has made the most of his life experience and talents. He's a sweet one, restoring my sometimes tenuous faith in the human male animal. Anyway, Markalo dresses the way he wants and is quicksilver in his presentation. He is going to be a force of legend. It's fitting that there is no Eugene Celebration framing to lean on for him. He was not given the key to the city, as Bananita said so eloquently: he has to go out and find it. He's doing really wonderfully so far!

After the Coronation I was helping to clean up and happened to rescue his handwritten speech, which is essentially his promise to us, his people, and here it is. I love what handwriting reveals and he stuck to the script, promising even more between the lines.

I thought to make it into an art piece for him but used the Slug to make the headpiece instead. I bestowed him with his purple flower crown yesterday to our mutual delight and he has plans to make it part of his eclectic and ever-changing costume, which will fit his expanded role.He has already added el-wire to his pimp hat and the lovely green crown Kim Still made (she as First Lady-in-Waiting gets to make lots of Slug Queen Swag.)

  So there was that. He and I had a great chat about the Empathy Tent mid-day, mostly me reinforcing my belief that if everyone had even a little training in compassionate listening and communicating we would all make life more wonderful for each other without much effort, instead of all the self-and other-sabotage we enter into without knowing a better way to get our needs met. The Empathy Tent will have a sometimes-there presence at Saturday Market for the rest of the season, usually locating on the west block back by the south wall. Step on in with your questions and concerns. Get to know Markalo. He's Your Queen and Mine!

Lots of our members stayed home yesterday due to fears about the weather. Remember what I have said about fears and weather predictions before...there was very little rain and not much wind either yesterday, just enough to keep us on our toes. People did fine with just umbrellas, and there was no weight inspection or punitive actions and no booths went flying either. Most of the storminess went north of us although I was happy I was prepared. It wasn't easy to bring that 75 pounds of sand on my bike cart. With the repair of the fountain our longtime habit of putting one or two of our booth legs into the recess of the fountain moat is over; my popup is now skewed out into the aisle a foot on the southeast corner and I have to bungie it to keep it in place, and I'll probably need the fourth weight bag now to be in compliance with the policy. I like being in compliance with policy. I seem to have outgrown much of my rebellious bad-girl parts and given over to Miss Rule-Follower. (Not in every way, of course, but I'm 65...need a little more safety for my body.) I felt bad for those who gave into their fears and stayed home. We had so many tourists! I sold a lot of bags, too, and people were really happy to find them. I had several conversations about plastic bags and imported bags and lots of support for my line of locally made and dyed products.

There was even a moment I exchanged looks with a charismatic and gorgeous young man who turned out to be Casey Affleck, we think. He was not your usual good-looking young man, I could tell that. He had a quality of self-awareness and deep power that was either his good luck or something he has learned from being in the big world that most of us would never want to enter, if we're honest. There was a touch of fear mixed with the expectation that I had recognized him (which I didn't), and I imagine that the opportunity to live a normal day strolling the Market with his friends was very precious to him, so I'm glad I didn't know who he was. It's possible that I made up the whole story, as possible as the idea that I might have sold him a hat. I don't even know. I make stuff up, but somebody else was positive it was him and it was certainly quite possible.

Our local celebrity Rich Glauber came by to sing the almost-finished version of a new song he has written about the 1920's, another in a series of very clever and accomplished songs he seems to write with a magical access to skill and knowledge built up over years of practice. He makes it look easy but when you hear the process from the beginning you can see how he layers it up like any piece of writing. He starts with a musical phrase or an idea, and with sometimes only a note or two he can add a whole new aspect, like a little reference to a Gershwin song he threw in there. He captured the giddiness before the crash of 1929...we can look back and see it, but he doesn't foreshadow it heavily, just enough to make us think about our times now, as we see what is coming but still party like it isn't. Do people really believe we won't be able to drive cars and have plastic everything? No, they do not, but some of us are operating like this is already the case. Some of my alternative culture friends don't even accept a plastic bag, because they don't want to be part of that stream of consumerism when they decide its next use. They don't want to be the one to throw it in the trash. I'm getting to be more and more that way, saving my bath water to use for other things, cutting down my water bill and feeling like I can still grow flowers in the drought. Riding my bike even for the awkward and distant objects I do need to consume. Mostly it seems eccentric, but really lots of us hippies have always known the future will demand such skills and comfort with the less-consumptive patterns of our society.

We want to already do the right thing even before it is legislated. That's not an easy road to walk. The booth weights issue was a great example of that yesterday. Those of us who got with the program were relaxed, and those who have resisted were caught a little short. We all know that the future will catch us all short, and we recognize the human nature in avoiding and procrastinating and not working on the skills we need. When we have an emotional crisis, the same things happen if we don't gain some skills while we can.

The gossip mills were less active yesterday (or didn't reach my ears) and the Empathy Tent was well-used. Little by little we are improving, working things out. We're still getting used to life without Beth, as a community, seeing how much we depended on her to keep us together, do all the necessary counseling and keeping out ahead of our tendencies as someone who knew us so well. We commiserated yesterday about how much we still need a Mom down on the Park Blocks. Well, I don't want the position, and truly we are better off not having someone we put into that role. Everybody needs to grow up, no matter their age, not just in the Market/Fair communities but everywhere. There is nobody in charge of your emotional growth but you, though of course you cannot do it all by yourself. Look around and listen well to all the forces that are there to assist you in being a better you, having a better experience, making life more wonderful every day for each other. That was Marshall's legacy, and the unspoken wish of all those we have tragically lost in recent days from our collective society. Hurt people hurt others. Take care of your pain; get the help you need. Keep working together to work for positive change. It has never not been needed; it has never not been the way. It has always been The Way. Humbly yours and mine.