Counter-anxiety techniques: I need some.

Witch Hazel

We laughed about politics at a meeting last night. It felt like the first time I laughed about it in months. I might be right about the death of the patriarchy. It's certainly flailing about in throes. Thank you all the powerful women for stepping up to equality instead of deferring. It's a lifetime struggle to bend culture but for sure it has bent. And thank you to the many powerful and important people who aren't women. It's probably even harder for people who encounter less oppression, because they have farther to go to feel the pain. Of course they should get over it asap because their privilege is hurting us all. My privilege is hurting us all. I'm working on it.

Not that we who care so deeply can stop fighting like hell. Everyone I know is doing everything they can, not without plenty of personal cost. I read that a volunteer hour is estimated at $300 in value. Many of us have spent at least the last month volunteering. I know my work income has been about $200 since the first of the year. That's partly by intention, of course. I really love a kind of vacation when I'm not retailing, though it is  an illusion that I'm relaxing. I'm catching up, more correctly, on all the things I set aside during Xmas and getting ready for it. And in practically no time I will be back in the shop. There are a few piles out there already waiting for me.

But it is Jell-O Art season and it is in full swing. Our group the Radar Angels meets weekly to plan our performance, and those of us who do art also envision and begin our pieces. I plan to write about that on my other blog, Gelatinaceae as soon as I get a chance. I also plan to create a persona page for Queen Gelatinaceae of the Jell-O Art and post on it, and so many other things. I have an idea for my piece and have dutifully put up a big table and spread out some dried pieces, but there are still those other piles...the taxes, the printing plans for the first part of the season, the many sets of minutes to type, the dishes, the floors, trying to remember to eat well.

I still want to read obsessively, but it's getting easier to navigate the many Facebook posts that are so compelling. I'm reading about climate change via Naomi Klein. I truly think that is a place to focus that is a bit outside politics in a way, but certainly as critical. I think it's the biggest issue that connects to almost all, if not all, of the others. We are out of time on it. I know it's too frightening to stay in with all of the time, the same as our national political scene. We have to remember to breathe and eat. We have to remember to keep it possible for us to breathe and eat. That we can do.

The City is about to reveal the recommendations from the NYC consultants, and I'm on the edge of my seat. I find the Council meetings entertaining, and like feeling a part of the process. I take notes like a reporter to report back to my task force. I feel a little bad that I bring so much self-interest, as I would like to be a person who has this much civic engagement for altruistic purposes, but maybe when I have less on my plate I will be able to expand my scope. Really I'm overwhelmed with how much I am carrying. I have to work to limit it like I have to get rid of things in my possession so I can have more space and freedom. It's good to have goals. Things do change and I will be able to step away from certain things at some point, or I'll be forced to by health or some other reason like most people. Don't want to add stress by thinking too much about it.

Spring is near. Flowers are blooming, and the weather is supposed to improve for a couple of days so I can do laundry and get to some of the pruning. Winter slips away fast enough though no one knows what's next and we've had snow at Market as late as April 21st. Photos of the flooded Fair site remind me that I need to work on the booth a bit this year...aargh. Always hard for me. Then there's the home improvement scheduled for post-Fair...why am I loading myself up here? Must feel that I'm unloading. Like making a list.

I've tried a new list-making technique, using a daily planner to write everything including things that pop into my mind. The hope was I'd transfer the items along until they got accomplished but of course that isn't really working. Still, I'm better off then when I was trying to manage with lots of little pieces of paper. It's amusing to still be refining my systems at this age...part of lifelong learning I suppose, to think we can always improve. Counters that slippage of getting older when your underlying sense is that your life may not always improve. It does, in some ways, and that would be a great attitude to cultivate. 

Cultivation is coming into season too! Maybe this will be the week to plant peas and get some starts going. I have to get another daphne, as mine died. None of my immediate neighbors have one I can walk by so I will have to remember where they are in my neighborhood. It's so lovely to be strolling along and be ambushed by that intense citrus. And oh, my next door neighbor has a witchhazel I'll have to check on. It's the little things I love the most. I saw an owl the other night!   Edit: the Witch Hazel is blooming!

Okay! A chatty, non-anxious post. Now I can get back to work. I won't feel bad if this doesn't get more readers, as it's more for me, to counter the intensity of what's been happening. It's still earth, we still have life, there's still plenty of room for cynicism, and I plan to fully ignore Valentine's Day once again, even though I love quite a few people and can still eat chocolate. Maybe I'll send a Valentine to Elizabeth Warren. Or Melissa McCarthy! Presently counting on Rosie O'Donnell and waiting for SNL. Wait, I thought I hated celebrity culture. Maybe not totally.