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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
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.
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.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
IMHO
Okay, I have to say something to my 30 loyal readers. This is my own opinion and no official thing, and I will restrict my sources to the Eugene Weekly Biz Beat and pretend I know nothing else about the soap fragrance issue. I'm the Secretary of the Market, but this is not a blog by the Secretary of the Market. This is an essay from the little old lady on Medicare who prints tote bags and hats with a little squeegee in my cramped little shop. As you might have read in my post from yesterday, I have probably come down to 8th and Oak to sell about a thousand times. That gives me about the same selling rights and advantages as the person who comes for the first time. We are a community that seeks equality. Not just for us, the ones who pay fees, but for the people who come down to do yoga on the lawn, to drum over there in the wild and free zone, or just to watch other people doing those things. We are free and we are open, 10-5, Rain or Shine. And thus it has been since 1970.
I've sold at the Market for 40 years. I've sat on the Board, taken thousands of hours of minutes of that body and various committees, served on a few Task Forces, study groups, but mostly I have stood in my 8x8 and observed the place. It's the Community Gathering Place. It's what the commons used to be, since that no longer exists in the modern town of practically everywhere. Pretty much anyone can come down there and do pretty much anything they want, but over the forty years the people who gather to oversee and nurture the Saturday Market have had to place a few limits on the commons when we are using them. Renting them, to be correct. We made a few rules. Not everyone follows them, of course.
Above all, the health and safety of every person who steps on the block is our concern, and not because liability insurance exists, but because it is right. Everyone from the newest babies to the practically ephemeral comes to our Market. Each person is under my protection, the protection of the community I am a part of. I choose to pay my fees and set up my wares and my (not at all "makeshift") business, and I make agreements when I do that. I agree to our Code of Conduct, and to all of the spoken and unspoken agreements of a polite and cooperative society.
So when I get hurt or mad I take care of it. I get counselling or check things out with my neighbors and friends and that is how I right my own ship and keep my relationship with the Saturday Market clean. I'm writing this with a bit of passion and normally I might not publish it right away, but since I made such a strong disclaimer I think I will just throw it out there. I might hang onto my hurt for awhile or I might see the error of my ways, but I have learned (imperfectly) to take responsibility for my own behavior and my thoughts. I expect that of everyone else too, though it is a lot to expect. So again, these are my thoughts, one little old lady in a town of what, 120,000? One voice.
I know people live in that park when I am not renting my little square. I know they must be worse off than me because I have a roof over my head when I go home. I have a car to move into if it gets that bad. I don't like it when those other park users make my life harder by leaving their waste and garbage in my space, but if I am the leader of the Market I ask the city to rent some porta-potties for the people who need them. Our Market spends a ton of money renting multiple ones for Saturdays, and I pay for that. I want my customers, my friends, and my fellow humans to be safe from disease and if possible, discomfort as well. It doesn't take that much thought to provide basic services. Wash your hands. If you run a newspaper, how about not putting in a headline about human waste being found at the Market? That hurt, but if Eugene is anything it is pretty sensible and that one didn't cause as much harm as we feared. People knew that the problem wasn't confined to that location, but was a worldwide problem. Everybody poops.
If I can't eat dairy (which is increasingly true, personally) I don't demand that every booth serve a dairy-free alternative for me, but I do take my money to support those who do. If they're people I can ask, I get a dish without cheese. If it's wheat, I get a gluten-free crepe or muffin or whatever I need. I don't think that is my right, necessarily, but in a community it is great when we see each others' needs and try to fill them. I find many, many instances of my special needs being important considerations for other people, and vice-versa. I don't use PVC-based ink in my products, because the people who make the PVC die from it. I'm not going to contribute to that if I can help it. Everybody ought to be able to find a job that doesn't kill them, everybody ought to feel like they belong to a society that sees them and hears them.
Of course I know a lot of people after all this time, and I wouldn't keep coming back if my needs didn't get met. I've learned to ask instead of demand, but when it comes to something like my health or safety, I keep asking until I feel safe. Did you know we are a smoke-free market? It's our workplace. Did you know dogs sometimes pee on our booth corners and our weight bags? That's one reason we don't allow pets. Another is that some little people and not-so-little people are afraid of dogs. It's easy enough to ask that people don't bring animals to the Market. Those food booths are restaurants, and they like it clean. In all forty years I have never been sickened by anything at Market, with the exception of the behavior of people who don't seem to know how to live in community. You may love your dog, but love them at home, if you don't mind.
I don't have a single problem with the Weekly coverage of the issue except that it shouldn't have been there. It's not "surprising" that empathetic ears were found at a meeting and a decision was still made that didn't let someone win and someone else lose. Listening is the first skill we learn to practice in group work. The organizations I love the most work within a consensus-seeking practice. That means everyone gets to listen to the concerns of everyone else, and then a solution to whatever problem or situation can be found that will be the most fair to the most people. Nobody gets dismissed, nobody is accused of following a fad or getting on a bandwagon. Pet rocks were a fad. Feeling the Bern is a bandwagon. Chemical Sensitivity is a medical condition that probably should be classified as a disability. Nobody in a consensus-seeking model is going to succeed by dismissing the health and safety concerns of someone else. I think the people of Eugene must know that, because nobody wrote a letter in response to the really surprising statement of last week's column.
I would have loved to have written a response to the Biz Beat article of last week or the one today, but I can't and won't, because I am committed to the consensus-seeking process that is the Saturday Market policy. The Standards Committee is going to take another look at the Scents policy to see if anything was overlooked, is open to misinterpretation, or if undue hardship will be placed on any individual by another. In the commons we have equal rights, in the Market we are equals. Everybody is honored, everybody gets to have their say, open their booth for business, and sell the creations that please them if they can find people willing to buy. It's really that simple. Process is our policy and we have a lot of meetings, and some of them are long and not that fun. Still, a commitment to process, transparency and fairness has brought us a long way. Remember when the city hated us? It wasn't that long ago. We earned respect because we try to do the right thing. We take our time, we really care about it, and we work hard.
If you think you can stereotype the Saturday Market member, I am here to tell you that you can't. The incubator and start-up opportunity that we participate in is open to everyone, from the ex-Marine with PTSD from Vietnam to the ex-corporate CEO who now just wants to make wood carvings in his garage. If you make it by hand, you are welcome to try to fit yourself into our basket.
The thing is, the basket is big and thousands fit. We all have to get along. Nobody is allowed to kick a hole in it and let the love leak out. At least they are not without attending a goodly number of meetings and learning how to live in it with the rest of us. With all the many thousands of people who have sold, attended, and loved or hated the Market all these years, nobody has managed to kick a hole in the basket yet.
So process will continue and people will continue to be heard and to participate in the group to seek consensus and get their needs met. The trust is there. I don't know the outcome, and I don't bother to try to push it or pull it to fit what I want. I say my piece, and I listen to everyone who cares to comment. As Secretary I don't even have a vote, and I like it that way. As the little old lady, I have this virtual soapbox, ironic as that is at the moment. It doesn't stink.
I've sold at the Market for 40 years. I've sat on the Board, taken thousands of hours of minutes of that body and various committees, served on a few Task Forces, study groups, but mostly I have stood in my 8x8 and observed the place. It's the Community Gathering Place. It's what the commons used to be, since that no longer exists in the modern town of practically everywhere. Pretty much anyone can come down there and do pretty much anything they want, but over the forty years the people who gather to oversee and nurture the Saturday Market have had to place a few limits on the commons when we are using them. Renting them, to be correct. We made a few rules. Not everyone follows them, of course.
Above all, the health and safety of every person who steps on the block is our concern, and not because liability insurance exists, but because it is right. Everyone from the newest babies to the practically ephemeral comes to our Market. Each person is under my protection, the protection of the community I am a part of. I choose to pay my fees and set up my wares and my (not at all "makeshift") business, and I make agreements when I do that. I agree to our Code of Conduct, and to all of the spoken and unspoken agreements of a polite and cooperative society.
So when I get hurt or mad I take care of it. I get counselling or check things out with my neighbors and friends and that is how I right my own ship and keep my relationship with the Saturday Market clean. I'm writing this with a bit of passion and normally I might not publish it right away, but since I made such a strong disclaimer I think I will just throw it out there. I might hang onto my hurt for awhile or I might see the error of my ways, but I have learned (imperfectly) to take responsibility for my own behavior and my thoughts. I expect that of everyone else too, though it is a lot to expect. So again, these are my thoughts, one little old lady in a town of what, 120,000? One voice.
I know people live in that park when I am not renting my little square. I know they must be worse off than me because I have a roof over my head when I go home. I have a car to move into if it gets that bad. I don't like it when those other park users make my life harder by leaving their waste and garbage in my space, but if I am the leader of the Market I ask the city to rent some porta-potties for the people who need them. Our Market spends a ton of money renting multiple ones for Saturdays, and I pay for that. I want my customers, my friends, and my fellow humans to be safe from disease and if possible, discomfort as well. It doesn't take that much thought to provide basic services. Wash your hands. If you run a newspaper, how about not putting in a headline about human waste being found at the Market? That hurt, but if Eugene is anything it is pretty sensible and that one didn't cause as much harm as we feared. People knew that the problem wasn't confined to that location, but was a worldwide problem. Everybody poops.
If I can't eat dairy (which is increasingly true, personally) I don't demand that every booth serve a dairy-free alternative for me, but I do take my money to support those who do. If they're people I can ask, I get a dish without cheese. If it's wheat, I get a gluten-free crepe or muffin or whatever I need. I don't think that is my right, necessarily, but in a community it is great when we see each others' needs and try to fill them. I find many, many instances of my special needs being important considerations for other people, and vice-versa. I don't use PVC-based ink in my products, because the people who make the PVC die from it. I'm not going to contribute to that if I can help it. Everybody ought to be able to find a job that doesn't kill them, everybody ought to feel like they belong to a society that sees them and hears them.
Of course I know a lot of people after all this time, and I wouldn't keep coming back if my needs didn't get met. I've learned to ask instead of demand, but when it comes to something like my health or safety, I keep asking until I feel safe. Did you know we are a smoke-free market? It's our workplace. Did you know dogs sometimes pee on our booth corners and our weight bags? That's one reason we don't allow pets. Another is that some little people and not-so-little people are afraid of dogs. It's easy enough to ask that people don't bring animals to the Market. Those food booths are restaurants, and they like it clean. In all forty years I have never been sickened by anything at Market, with the exception of the behavior of people who don't seem to know how to live in community. You may love your dog, but love them at home, if you don't mind.
I don't have a single problem with the Weekly coverage of the issue except that it shouldn't have been there. It's not "surprising" that empathetic ears were found at a meeting and a decision was still made that didn't let someone win and someone else lose. Listening is the first skill we learn to practice in group work. The organizations I love the most work within a consensus-seeking practice. That means everyone gets to listen to the concerns of everyone else, and then a solution to whatever problem or situation can be found that will be the most fair to the most people. Nobody gets dismissed, nobody is accused of following a fad or getting on a bandwagon. Pet rocks were a fad. Feeling the Bern is a bandwagon. Chemical Sensitivity is a medical condition that probably should be classified as a disability. Nobody in a consensus-seeking model is going to succeed by dismissing the health and safety concerns of someone else. I think the people of Eugene must know that, because nobody wrote a letter in response to the really surprising statement of last week's column.
I would have loved to have written a response to the Biz Beat article of last week or the one today, but I can't and won't, because I am committed to the consensus-seeking process that is the Saturday Market policy. The Standards Committee is going to take another look at the Scents policy to see if anything was overlooked, is open to misinterpretation, or if undue hardship will be placed on any individual by another. In the commons we have equal rights, in the Market we are equals. Everybody is honored, everybody gets to have their say, open their booth for business, and sell the creations that please them if they can find people willing to buy. It's really that simple. Process is our policy and we have a lot of meetings, and some of them are long and not that fun. Still, a commitment to process, transparency and fairness has brought us a long way. Remember when the city hated us? It wasn't that long ago. We earned respect because we try to do the right thing. We take our time, we really care about it, and we work hard.
If you think you can stereotype the Saturday Market member, I am here to tell you that you can't. The incubator and start-up opportunity that we participate in is open to everyone, from the ex-Marine with PTSD from Vietnam to the ex-corporate CEO who now just wants to make wood carvings in his garage. If you make it by hand, you are welcome to try to fit yourself into our basket.
The thing is, the basket is big and thousands fit. We all have to get along. Nobody is allowed to kick a hole in it and let the love leak out. At least they are not without attending a goodly number of meetings and learning how to live in it with the rest of us. With all the many thousands of people who have sold, attended, and loved or hated the Market all these years, nobody has managed to kick a hole in the basket yet.
So process will continue and people will continue to be heard and to participate in the group to seek consensus and get their needs met. The trust is there. I don't know the outcome, and I don't bother to try to push it or pull it to fit what I want. I say my piece, and I listen to everyone who cares to comment. As Secretary I don't even have a vote, and I like it that way. As the little old lady, I have this virtual soapbox, ironic as that is at the moment. It doesn't stink.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
A Thousand Days
Our little Saturday Market neighborhood is friendly, as a rule. We're one of those fairly well-established ones with people who have come for a long time and like to come every week, stay until 5:00, try to follow the rules. We share some of those old-hippie traits like being wary of authority, thinking the hippies were right, not exactly being sports fans...but we do try to be supportive of the home team when everyone around us is dressed in yellow and green and lots of others are in whatever colors the visiting team favors. We certainly appreciate that out-of-towners like to come and experience our Market and are sometimes hauled down there by regulars or home-town hosts who know where the fun is. My booth is a little out of the mainstream in what I like to feel is an eddy, and I suppose I might make more money in another space, but I'm at home in mine. It feels like a fine fabric that unspools from the bolt every week and glimmers in the seasonal sun or dampness in a little different color each time I look.
Raven and I like to keep our sides open to each other so we can watch each other's booths while we run to Farmer's Market or the food court, and we have our sequence of that. He gets his pastry first, then his peaches, then his coffee, and somewhere in there he leads the little parade, and I usually stay in the booth and get all of my stock and signs hung until that is finished and I go off for my second breakfast. All day long we chat and cover each other while the various purchases and discussions are held around the blocks. This week we were enjoying the rituals of thousands of Market days and thought to actually calculate an estimate of how many thousands. It turns out that at thirty years and approximately 33 Markets per year, Raven has probably reached the one-thousand-markets mark!
As this is my fortieth year, I have probably surpassed the mark, but I did spend at least ten years working on my house-building project on weekends instead of selling on Saturdays, so maybe we are at about the same place in time. It's hard to say, though I probably still have all of the receipts up in the attic. I'll be throwing those into the recycling soon I suppose. I've reached the time when I have to seriously abandon some of the good junk I've collected over the years. It's hard to know where to start. I have to admit to myself that maybe I won't make cast paper or sheets of handmade paper anymore, so could let go of the screens and tubs and handy accessories for that craft. Or maybe I won't paint silk, and could sell off the scarves and dyes, or maybe it's my comic book collection I have to get rid of. Something has to go. It seems hard now but like the roof project I'm avoiding, it won't get any easier. Raven and I also commiserate about the decline of our bodies, our spines and our nerves and our various abilities. It has been a relatively gentle decline until recently, but the direction is clear. It's hard to imagine believing that we couldn't trust anyone over 30...that was half a lifetime ago.
He got the shingles, and so did my Mom, and clearly this is something to avoid even harder than I'm avoiding that roof project I was supposed to do this summer. I went for my first Medicare appointment and although I am not old like they expected me to be, I'm going to be fitting into their system with increasing need and denial won't help. After a lifetime feeling like the ant I'm afraid I was more like the grasshopper in effect. My safety net has some really large holes in it.
On Sunday, however, I got to meet with a group of people who represent one of the best aspects of Saturday Market: the Kareng Fund Board. This fund, started by Market members about twelve years ago and funded almost completely by Market members all this time, has in the very recent past stepped up to a more solid legacy by completing the process of becoming a 501c3 non-profit. It was scary at first but we paid for a professional training and once trained, directed ourselves to think bigger. We have a couple of people in our midst who know how to do that. Alex thinks we will give a million dollars in grants. (We have a way to go, but we've given over $25,000 to date!) We expanded our granting to all independent artisans in Oregon who meet our criteria. We started asking for funding.
Our first try was the Rex Foundation, the arm of the Grateful Dead organization set up to help nonprofits thrive. We put together a grant application and asked for, and received, $5000! This will be used to increase the amount we can give from a $750 maximum to an amount more useful to those in crisis. We will also engage in more outreach so more people know about our resource. While we only fund low-income artisans (up to 200% of the poverty level) we wanted to expand our granting outside the Market community. It's not that easy to reach the people who need us.
Saturday Market has always been very kind about keeping the KF under their wing, collecting donations from the payment envelopes and hosting the basket drawings and Auction with Percussive Interludes at the Holiday Market. Many members round up their weekly percentage payments with a few cents or a couple of dollars to the Kareng Fund. It's a very simple way to support our fund, easier than finding the right change to pay the exact ten percent we owe at the end of the sales day. I welcome it, and contribute twice a week with my Tuesday earnings as well. All of those small amounts add up. The fund kind of magically hovers at about the same amount as we have given, although the recent windfall swelled the fund total to over $30,000.
It's time to give more grants! If you know anyone who is struggling with a career-threatening crisis, someone who makes money from their art by participating in some type of arts organization, send them to the Kareng Fund. Our application is online and easy to fill out. The Saturday Market office also accepts applications via our brochure, which should be widely available, but the online process is the easiest and quickest. We don't have a fancy website. We aren't a fancy group. Our potluck brunch featured homegrown tomatoes and homemade muffins. It was very warming to look around the table at this group and recognize the purity of this fund created out of simple goodness and caring for others. There is no politics, no contention, no misunderstanding connected with our mission. We occasionally discuss the nature of "career-threatening" and want to avoid funding chronic need rather than crisis, but we adopted the tagline of "a safety net for artisans." That's what we are, a small part of something sorely needed in our artisan community.
The world seems increasingly un-caring and people undergoing suffering are often on their own, particularly when they have lived the independent and often isolated lives our artist culture fosters. Isolated people often do not know where to turn when they are suddenly the ones with health issues or what I call the "life tax." When your shop is burglarized or your bike stolen, your garage burns down or your partner falls ill, you can feel quite frightened about how you will make things work. Often the self-employed fall through the cracks of government programs, or those not old enough or disabled enough to access senior or other services find no help from the local agencies. They may not have the ability or time to craft the complicated forms to apply for government programs, or trust that asking won't cause some other type of harm to come to them. We don't give a lot, but it might be just enough. We've funded things like water heaters and bus passes, purchases of inventory after a greenhouse freeze or the loss of a shop. We funded many health crises before the advent of Obamacare, and continue to do so. If you need us we want to be there for you.
We will be continuing to ask for your donations and continuing to reach out to those who need us. Don't be afraid to ask. Sure, there may be someone who needs the money more than you, but there is enough for them as well as for you. Don't be too humble to get the help you need, even if it is just the small amount we can give. We want to help. It feels good all around. A huge thank you is due to those who started and continued the work of the fund for so many years, and to all those who gave their nickels and dimes. It's simple and good. It's one step up from passing the hat and neighbor helping neighbor. Help us spread the goodness by asking, giving, and talking about us, especially to those in need. If you know someone with money they want to share, direct them our way or invite them to the auction at the HM. Together we have an impact and we can see the immediate increase in safety, health, and the ability to thrive in those we care about.
And here's to another thousand days selling at Eugene Saturday Market! I may never be rich in dollars, but I am most certainly rich in so many other ways. See you on the Park Blocks.
Raven and I like to keep our sides open to each other so we can watch each other's booths while we run to Farmer's Market or the food court, and we have our sequence of that. He gets his pastry first, then his peaches, then his coffee, and somewhere in there he leads the little parade, and I usually stay in the booth and get all of my stock and signs hung until that is finished and I go off for my second breakfast. All day long we chat and cover each other while the various purchases and discussions are held around the blocks. This week we were enjoying the rituals of thousands of Market days and thought to actually calculate an estimate of how many thousands. It turns out that at thirty years and approximately 33 Markets per year, Raven has probably reached the one-thousand-markets mark!
As this is my fortieth year, I have probably surpassed the mark, but I did spend at least ten years working on my house-building project on weekends instead of selling on Saturdays, so maybe we are at about the same place in time. It's hard to say, though I probably still have all of the receipts up in the attic. I'll be throwing those into the recycling soon I suppose. I've reached the time when I have to seriously abandon some of the good junk I've collected over the years. It's hard to know where to start. I have to admit to myself that maybe I won't make cast paper or sheets of handmade paper anymore, so could let go of the screens and tubs and handy accessories for that craft. Or maybe I won't paint silk, and could sell off the scarves and dyes, or maybe it's my comic book collection I have to get rid of. Something has to go. It seems hard now but like the roof project I'm avoiding, it won't get any easier. Raven and I also commiserate about the decline of our bodies, our spines and our nerves and our various abilities. It has been a relatively gentle decline until recently, but the direction is clear. It's hard to imagine believing that we couldn't trust anyone over 30...that was half a lifetime ago.
He got the shingles, and so did my Mom, and clearly this is something to avoid even harder than I'm avoiding that roof project I was supposed to do this summer. I went for my first Medicare appointment and although I am not old like they expected me to be, I'm going to be fitting into their system with increasing need and denial won't help. After a lifetime feeling like the ant I'm afraid I was more like the grasshopper in effect. My safety net has some really large holes in it.
On Sunday, however, I got to meet with a group of people who represent one of the best aspects of Saturday Market: the Kareng Fund Board. This fund, started by Market members about twelve years ago and funded almost completely by Market members all this time, has in the very recent past stepped up to a more solid legacy by completing the process of becoming a 501c3 non-profit. It was scary at first but we paid for a professional training and once trained, directed ourselves to think bigger. We have a couple of people in our midst who know how to do that. Alex thinks we will give a million dollars in grants. (We have a way to go, but we've given over $25,000 to date!) We expanded our granting to all independent artisans in Oregon who meet our criteria. We started asking for funding.
Our first try was the Rex Foundation, the arm of the Grateful Dead organization set up to help nonprofits thrive. We put together a grant application and asked for, and received, $5000! This will be used to increase the amount we can give from a $750 maximum to an amount more useful to those in crisis. We will also engage in more outreach so more people know about our resource. While we only fund low-income artisans (up to 200% of the poverty level) we wanted to expand our granting outside the Market community. It's not that easy to reach the people who need us.
Saturday Market has always been very kind about keeping the KF under their wing, collecting donations from the payment envelopes and hosting the basket drawings and Auction with Percussive Interludes at the Holiday Market. Many members round up their weekly percentage payments with a few cents or a couple of dollars to the Kareng Fund. It's a very simple way to support our fund, easier than finding the right change to pay the exact ten percent we owe at the end of the sales day. I welcome it, and contribute twice a week with my Tuesday earnings as well. All of those small amounts add up. The fund kind of magically hovers at about the same amount as we have given, although the recent windfall swelled the fund total to over $30,000.
It's time to give more grants! If you know anyone who is struggling with a career-threatening crisis, someone who makes money from their art by participating in some type of arts organization, send them to the Kareng Fund. Our application is online and easy to fill out. The Saturday Market office also accepts applications via our brochure, which should be widely available, but the online process is the easiest and quickest. We don't have a fancy website. We aren't a fancy group. Our potluck brunch featured homegrown tomatoes and homemade muffins. It was very warming to look around the table at this group and recognize the purity of this fund created out of simple goodness and caring for others. There is no politics, no contention, no misunderstanding connected with our mission. We occasionally discuss the nature of "career-threatening" and want to avoid funding chronic need rather than crisis, but we adopted the tagline of "a safety net for artisans." That's what we are, a small part of something sorely needed in our artisan community.
The world seems increasingly un-caring and people undergoing suffering are often on their own, particularly when they have lived the independent and often isolated lives our artist culture fosters. Isolated people often do not know where to turn when they are suddenly the ones with health issues or what I call the "life tax." When your shop is burglarized or your bike stolen, your garage burns down or your partner falls ill, you can feel quite frightened about how you will make things work. Often the self-employed fall through the cracks of government programs, or those not old enough or disabled enough to access senior or other services find no help from the local agencies. They may not have the ability or time to craft the complicated forms to apply for government programs, or trust that asking won't cause some other type of harm to come to them. We don't give a lot, but it might be just enough. We've funded things like water heaters and bus passes, purchases of inventory after a greenhouse freeze or the loss of a shop. We funded many health crises before the advent of Obamacare, and continue to do so. If you need us we want to be there for you.
We will be continuing to ask for your donations and continuing to reach out to those who need us. Don't be afraid to ask. Sure, there may be someone who needs the money more than you, but there is enough for them as well as for you. Don't be too humble to get the help you need, even if it is just the small amount we can give. We want to help. It feels good all around. A huge thank you is due to those who started and continued the work of the fund for so many years, and to all those who gave their nickels and dimes. It's simple and good. It's one step up from passing the hat and neighbor helping neighbor. Help us spread the goodness by asking, giving, and talking about us, especially to those in need. If you know someone with money they want to share, direct them our way or invite them to the auction at the HM. Together we have an impact and we can see the immediate increase in safety, health, and the ability to thrive in those we care about.
And here's to another thousand days selling at Eugene Saturday Market! I may never be rich in dollars, but I am most certainly rich in so many other ways. See you on the Park Blocks.
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