We're Not Playing a Football Game

So many conflicting and emotional thoughts to sort through on the Monday after the first Holiday Market. By appearances we just change venue, go indoors to do the same thing in a different space. Internally, we change season from the long days of summer to the short dark times when we huddle around a candle waiting for the solstice. We need the light to return. We look around at each other and all the darkness seeps out to puddle on those concrete floors and get swept up into some kind of warmth and an eventual rest.

I had so many conversations about death, and that's my normal there. I missed Connie dropping her heavy bags in the aisle in front of my booth as her arms gave out and I wished I had carried them for her many more times. There's a missing beating heart down on her corner for sure, as the fabric reweaves itself around that tear. Other people have left or moved. I would venture to say nearly everyone there wants Colleen's cheerful greeting in the morning. We grow used to ourselves and forget that little about the Market is the same from week to week. We're so lucky to have new and different, to remind us to value dependable and time-tested as well. We need both.

At Market we still remind ourselves that we are engaged in working together for the common good, seeking consensus, but that doesn't mean we all think of that with each of our daily acts. I say we are non-competitive, but sometimes neighbors do argue over inches of space or perceived visibilty, and obviously we have developed forms called "Notice of Concern" and "Market Standards and Craft Specific Guidelines" for good reasons. Conflict resolution can be a driver for rules, but in our language and our rules we mostly try for conflict avoidance. We try to stay out ahead of what will cause distress or chaos.

There have been endless hours of discussion about our policies, and they are all living history as we figure out how to keep them current and fair. New technologies have to be addressed as that line shifts between handcrafted and manufactured. Survival of handcrafting is paramount...if someone can cut their costs to compete unfairly, we might need to look into how far we have extended our tolerance for production over one-of-a-kind. We want there to be honor in our work, a shared understanding that it is not about the sales we can each make, but about the success of all of us together. With Fair, we all want to have our Fair, the one we value so much. There is always that pure level of what we call love.

We had a surprising first day, as going in earlier had most of us thinking we'd have some empty aisles, but every spot was sold, and anticipation was high. People came! Ironically the football game benefitted us for a change as the park-and-ride allowed some visitor motivation at the end of the day.

My thoughts about football were spurred from a post by Heather Cox Richardson, someone I discovered on FB, who is writing cogent daily posts about the impeachment situation. I appreciate her analysis and she is good at tying threads together. Her post was about baseball, basicallly saying if one team wins by cheating, the game gradually changes to one that is rigged by cheating and it isn't fun to watch anymore as the democracy and rule of law are discarded. That's not exactly what she said but what I've been reflecting on lately is how OCF politics got from the consensus-seeking group process we've been refining and particpating in for fifty years to this game of power politics that we are watching unfold now. I am not enjoying watching it, at all.

Power politics have no place in the kind of mutual-benefit, every-member-is-equal kind of organization that developed over time. The goals of fairness, equity, honorable actions and striving together for the common good are, to my mind, the opposite of the goals of football. Winning by dominating just shouldn't even be in our toolbox of the techniques we use to find agreement for the common good. I think this understanding is key to what we're going through now.

The last committee meeting I participated in was one of the worst of my entire life. As I process it over time to try to understand it, I can't get past the bullying. One person, because they didn't like the way things were going, decided that our thin quorum was within their power to take, and got up to leave mid-meeting. They were willing to jettison our ability to make decisions to wrap up our year of work, instead of accepting that they could just vote no, or continue to try to persuade. Accepting that the group did not agree with them. It can be humbling.

I have been thinking about this personality type I am calling The Spoiler. This person is carrying enough unresolved pain or trauma that they take some joy in causing chaos, just to ruin whatever structure they perceive is part of their oppression. They get increasingly angry that they aren't getting the compassion and connection they need, and their sense of belonging and community rips, and they just want to destroy what everyone else is happily working to build. It's not a simple situation as sometimes their position has validity, but their tactics of destruction can only result in a more chaotic mess where even fewer people will get their needs met, and they might get a sense of winning, but they cause more loss than gain. Their willingness for transgression is attractive to others who have simmering anger and need permission to transgress. Things devolve quickly into a savage atmosphere where defensiveness and agression are common.

To the committee's credit, the bullying was identified and the person's anger was addressed to some degree and they stayed, but that particular issue was indeed derailed and everyone was disturbed enough that a productive meeting was barely accomplished. It left a nasty residue for me. My actions were not blameless in response, so I want to do better, but aside from setting some boundaries I am not sure I can fix it. A spoiler is not going to become a reasonable person who won't try it again. A bully won't just reform into an empathetic supporter of group process.

Unless, of course, they are shown a way that resonates for them as a better way to get their needs met. It's a self-discovery process though, and there is no instant fix for the kind of hurt and stress that causes the bully or spoiler to develop. It always seems like it will require a show of greater strength. If we don't tolerate it, if we articulate it and illuminate it, maybe we can sidestep from having to have a violent confrontation about it. If we can depend on the rule of law, on the fair process we have written down, on the thoughtful discussions we are able to have, maybe we can fix some of it.

But not as long as the people who want to win by dominating are feeling their power and are succeeding. We see that crumbling in the macrocosm. I want to see it dissolve in our microcosm.

There is no place for power politics in a membership organization. Winning and losing are a fantasy of football. Think about it. No one at a concert wins or loses. No one at a family dinner. No one wins the Holiday Market. No one wins the Jell-O Art Show. No awards are given at a potluck.

Let's do better, friends. Let's huddle a little closer around our candle and actively encourage the light to return. Because you know what? We're all gonna die. All. Of. Us. Some way too soon.

Someone very wonderful yesterday asked me if I would sit down to receive a compliment. It felt extremely odd and a first for me to experience that, and my ego swelled up as I thought of all the good works I have tried to do and how hard I had been trying all weekend to contain the emotions and stay positive and encouraging. I sat and vowed to listen and treasure what he was about to say.

He said, "I really like your hair. It looks beautiful."

And in doing that he revealed to me the material for a dozen essays. Did I laugh out loud, or even say thank you? I felt disappointed...I pointed out that I had recently given myself a really bad haircut (and there is a rather elaborate story about that) but was depending on my natural curl to do its thing. We had a short chat and I left to resume working with the new wonder of what he was really doing. Was it really just that?

I have my theories. He had his motives. He genuinely likes my hair. It made me like my hair more than I did when I last looked in the mirror. What if that was enough, to sit and find out a person looked at me and enjoyed what he saw. What if that was enough? Not that writing a dozen essays would be a bad thing, but what if I learned to just say thank you? And love myself a little more.

What if being together in all this is enough? We're so damn lucky to be here. We don't need a prize. Nobody needs to win this. It would be nice if we could learn to love it.

Leadership in Times of Chaos

Interesting microcosm. I was called out as a leader of OCF to speak up on a highly dramatic FB post about a post about a post, not to denounce the drama but to join in. My initial response was of the "ten-foot-pole" style so I declined to engage, but of course triggering begets triggering so I haven't gotten it out of my mind.

Yesterday was Saturday of course and I was working my 12-hour day, and Friday preparing for that, so I was more compelled to do the resting that is my routine, and didn't even see the post about a post about a post where my name was mentioned, until Saturday night. I knew better to respond or react, thankfully.

When I see someone going off into their distress, I have a lot of empathy while I am backing away. If I am there in person and can offer some pre-arranged de-stressing techniques, I might offer them, if it seems helpful. A hand on the arm or shoulder, maybe placing my body between the distressed person and the source of their trigger, such as when my friend gets set off by the obnoxious X-tians on the corner at the Market. I might repeat something we had decided on earlier, such as "Maybe you should have lunch, can I get you some pizza?" or simply "Maybe you don't really want to go over there." Sometimes it works, but mostly triggered people have to engage their own process for calming. It's a process, not an action.

When there is that cascade of hormonal stress responses, very little can be done to interrupt the sequence unless the person has set up and at least partially mastered their counter-response. I know what mine is but when first triggered I have very little ability to do the steps, except withdrawal, since avoidance is my most treasured technique. Online stuff, no problem, I read in horror, feel my emotions rising, and turn the computer off and walk away. Do something else while the thoughts run wild and gradually re-arrange. This one was almost funny, but not really, as I argued with myself about it.

My first reaction was to deny that I am an OCF leader. I mean, I serve on one committee, though I do work hard there and have been helpful and effective. I have a booth. I listen to the meetings and read the FFN and try to keep up. I monitor several FB groups informally to keep myself aware of what's happening there. I care a lot, but I don't see that I do much. I tried to advocate for some Board candidates but I won't publicly denounce others, ideally. They need to be evaluated on their statements and records, not my opinions. So leader? I don't know. I've been there a long time.

In my committee I lead by using a supportive role (Scribe) to organize thoughts and discussions and records for clarity and effectiveness. I feel it is kind of leading from the group rather than putting myself out front. When I look at my other leadership roles I see that pattern...for SM I am Secretary, required to attend every meeting but always without a vote. I will express my opinion if it doesn't seem to be covered by the Board members or if it is something I really really am convinced about or have some history to add. Since I am also playing the recorder role I try to stay in that and be an impartial witness. I guess that is also what I do on OCF FB threads...I witness, trying to discern the logical and rational positions and amplify those, adding my voice to the reasonable ones and attempting to not amplify the unreasonable ones. Is it leading? From behind maybe.

I don't enjoy confrontation, which is triggering for me because of bullying. I have to avoid bullies, and I have identified a wide range of controlling behaviors that are on that list. Unfortunately, the person who called me out used one on me, so I won't join that thread in anyone's defense, not even my own. Calling someone out to comment on a FB post? When did that become a thing? I don't moderate that site like I do another, where it is my responsibility to control behaviors and comments. But I felt both honored that I was considered a leader, and horrified to think I was supposed to wade into that messy post. Later as I got more rational, I remembered that calling people to Fb posts has been a thing for a long time. I just wanted to stay in my cave and not have to state the obvious: name calling is wrong. Antisemitism is really wrong. All of those tactics are wrong. I suppose I could have done that, in retrospect. But the rest of the post, with all the many comments, took me an hour to read, and I wanted no part of it.

The person who posted has no relationship with me. We haven't met. The person going off into their triggered response is someone with whom I can't communicate of late. My avoidance is strong with that one. Every time I have engaged with them on FB, I have felt dismissed, contradicted, and not heard, so I've mostly stopped engaging. Let them spin out. Not my dog, as we say.

But here I am defending myself. Here I am, mildly triggered. That shit is contagious! I avoid it like the plague! And the more it becomes the way of Fair politics, the more I step away. It is unthinkable to me to run for the OCF Board, even if I had the time to do it, which I don't. I would not survive sitting at that table month after month. It took me years to commit to my committee because of the bullying behaviors taking place within it. We've mostly figured out ways to minimize them now, but OCF has a huge bullying problem. It's incredibly widespread, although we also have a large segment of our community of persons who are self-aware, have studied compassionate communication, psychology, addictions, behavior patterns, and who have helped our community evolve. They mostly don't engage because when they do, they are also attacked and dragged into the drama, and they know better than to allow that in their lives. They are perhaps our silent majority, people who have decided to just do their jobs and get their joy and not play the power games. I'm proud of them and gratified to have faith in their existence. Once in awhile they speak out, but mostly conserve their energies to do bigger things in the world than defuse Fair drama. So sometimes the drama takes over like it has this past year. What an emotional chore it has been even to witness.

The worst part of it is that even people saying they want Code of Conduct revisions to end them don't seem to have the self-awareness to see how they themselves engage in the behaviors. When someone comes on and tries to help them identify those behaviors, that person is attacked. Defensiveness is the rule. it's always about ME with some of those folks. Years of therapy are needed, not some Task force meetings. A retreat won't help.

I wanted to support the two people who were trying hard to refocus the rants, make their points clearly, and identify the irrationality. I was afraid to even "like" their posts. I need to maintain more of a witness-like, neutral stand with it all, and I guess that is how my leadership is going to work with OCF. I will make my statements, with my shirts or my blog posts or my private conversations, but I am not going to get out there and engage with this messy, destructive patterned behavior of the last year and now.

Maybe I see myself as some kind of moral leader, and maybe I am failing to rise to the occasion. I feel like a coward about it. I feel like the irrationality and dysfunction makes me act like a coward instead of stepping up and speaking truth to it. Like with the X-tians and their awful signs and proselytizing, I feel like engaging will be a losing proposition and further amplify their destructive patterned messaging. If I play, they will win. I don't even want it to be a competition, but drama is inherently competitive. Give ME the attention. I need it more than you do! The patterns are so classic. Just not my cup of tea. Life is too short.

So there it is. I will now engage in my day of rest. I'll talk to my Mom about her book design, I will clean up a bit around here, make food, and maybe feel safe enough to try out this tincture I got. I insist on my right to feel safe. If that means staying off FB and inside my little world, that's what I'm doing. Don't call me out. I am watching. If I want to say something, I might. If I don't, that's my choice and I will live with it. You do your part, whatever you think it is.

Things in the macrocosm are crumbling violently! Let's please protect our microcosm. We are going to need it. We need it now.

Hermit Week

I've decided to take my calendar as a guide...there are zero meetings scheduled this week. I can't remember when that last happened...maybe in January. But it made me maniacally happy to consider having a week of no obligations. Skip Tuesday Market, put off this and that...carve out a week of summer.

I have to laugh how I keep qualifying it. I have one printing job that has to be done, because Burning Man is important to other people. But it's bandanas, which aren't too hard to print, and Dave doesn't care what inks I use or even whether they are great quality, because he's giving them away to other Burners...so I can do that. Then there's that collection of clown clothes for Saturday...I have most of it already in a box, so dropping that off at the office won't be a big chore. Except it's the office...where I even have a shelf, as well as many empty ones awaiting my archiving. So maybe I could work on archives, because that is fun...and I can pick up some beer on the way home from dropping off the clown clothes.

And drying tomatoes and making apple-pear sauce isn't really work, it just has to be done now or it wastes the free food my trees give me. If I prune them. So maybe I'll finish up the summer pruning. It's not really work because I like to do it. And I get mulch.

Then there's the painting...I have parts of both houses that need to be dealt with. There's no time like summer to do those projects, and again, I enjoy that. Mostly. What I enjoy is having uninterrupted space and time to do them in, so this week fits that bill.

And obligations, well, there are the friends and neighbors I am neglecting, always using the excuse of too much work to do. So when I eliminate the work pressure, there goes my excuse. So, some hanging out? No, I don't want to have to talk to anyone. Hermit week!

I want to stay offline. Facebook makes me anxious as much as it gives me some pleasure now and then. Maybe I can check it but just not comment. A few "likes" could maybe be painless. Perhaps once a day or so, with maybe a couple of days when I pretend the internet doesn't exist. Unless I have to look up something like how to remove shingles without shredding the whole wall. Or where to get parts for whatever I decide to fix from my endless list. So maybe I have to visit Jerry's or some other place to buy things. Or maybe I just do what I can do without driving anywhere.

And then suppose I got some acupuncture for my foot or my arm or my general sense of well-being? I could fit that in. Or make an appointment for next week. I'm supposed to be getting a bone scan, so I guess I could make that call. But hermits don't use the phone, so scratch that. Texting with my son? Always okay, even for hermit week.

I will call my Mom, of course, at 1:00 as I do every Sunday, but that is going to be it for today. Do I keep the phone on as I told my greiving neighbor I would? Yes, I guess I do. So maybe the week of chosen obligations. I choose all my obligations, really. Sometimes the reasons are a bit obscure.

Will I cut some branches off some trees perhaps? I would've, if a squirrel nest hadn't landed in the middle of the street yesterday. I found it on my way home, and quickly thought it would not be good for my neighbor to find it, so I picked it up and moved it onto my property. But the babies, mostly still alive, were not going to be creatures whose lives I took responsiblity for beyond moving them to safety. Yes, I love animals, but another batch of squirrels to eat my pears and apples before I can get to them? Perhaps nature would take care of them. I wondered if the mother might rescue them like a cat would. Though full of dread I looked this morning and all of them were gone, the living and the ones who looked dead yesterday. Cleanly gone. Nature might have done it, the mother squirrel or a raccoon or possum or other predator. I did a little.

I'm grieving too, for my neighbor who suffered a painful end to his life, but it's a strange grief I need to explore in solitude. I've been crying at odd things. Hearing that JJ's husband stood there at the corner of the info booth all day just in case she was in danger still makes me weep. Romantic love songs make me think of my son celebrating a six-month anniversary of a lover...six months. Ahhh. The limerence is high, they seem grounded, but he's the age I was in 1979, and oh, so many love things happened in the last 40 years. I cry to think about his heartbreaks, cry to think about his joy.

I want to have some euphoria and joy in my hermit week, and I do love solitude and every time the bushtit flock lands on the suet, fifteen at a time, I get a thrill. My backyard birds and plants are possibly enough wilderness for me, but maybe I could motivate to go weep by the ocean or take a hike. If there wouldn't be any people...but people can be so good and kind and inspiring. The Banana Block in Portland...clowns in the face of terror...I can love people. Lots of them, actually.

So maybe only a few hermit days will suffice. Hard to know until I sink in. It's okay to not drop every little thing, so qualifying isn't a crime. I can aspire to hermit week. Maybe certain special people would actually improve hermit week...it's possible. I can be open to it. I can be open.

Open and closed all at once, joy and sorrow, grief and love. That's where I operate best, on that tightrope. Feeling that divine tension.

Call me next week, and I might answer. Leave a message. Hug someone, to make up for me running away. I'll be back next Saturday at Market, because. Love you!

One Week Home from What Was That?

The last time John wore his fairy wings.

I feel wiped clean. All of the anxiety and stress of the pre-Fair is gone, almost all of the many cloth piles and rugs are washed and stowed away again, and I am beginning to restore my piles of work and archives and piles of things I need to do next.  I miss Fair. It went by fast and full of joy and work and I want some of it back. My favorite day was the rainy day when all I did was dump water off my tarps every hour or so, and proceed slowly to make sure nothing got wet. A few things did but I worked hard at it, slowly, and loved the pace. Setup was delayed a day but camping in the rain has a charm about it.

Summer is finally here for me, stretching out in its gentle way with plenty of heat and breeziness and quiet in the backyard. I dozed on the deck last night trying to read and just felt perfect.

Had to spend the day cleaning up the front yard, as I got a letter from the city telling me I had to. There was still some tree damage from the big snow I hadn't addressed so I cut some limbs, pruned everything, and had a huge bouquet of flowers from it which I put on my neighbor's back porch. She is rather desperately traveling back and forth to the hospital as she faces what might be her husband's final medical crisis, or not. She doesn't know. It's how those things go, rarely with certainty for a period of time and then with crushing certaintly as it all changes forever. I did her yard work and tried to comfort her. She must feel so lonely.

Fair did bring the renewal as we all paused all of our differences and arguments and had a huge event together. Through the exhaustion I observed all of the wild color and over-the-top creativity, dipping in as much as I could while mostly just trying to hang on and do my work. It is so much work, but at least I sold a lot of things so it was less to pack up. 

The 50th put so much pressure on it all but some diamonds did result. Radar Angels got some juice, a lot of participation and recognition, of which I only tasted a tiny bit. Had I known about the midnight show I might have attended, but I'm glad there is video. They worked hard for it and made a purple and gold splash. I dressed up for the Elders meet and greet and sadly missed something else I meant to attend, but it's so hard to focus on anything but the retail part that I forgive myself.

People probably don't realize how overwhelming it is to have all 59,000 people passing by the booth a few times apiece, and those are just the public attendees. I had to hide out in my room periodically and even took a nap one day. The demand hasn't ended. I have some printing to do today and will resume Tuesday Market tomorrow and still have to get out to the site and finish up the work I do when it's over, cleaning up and making sure we will survive the flood season.

Lane County Fair is also this week and I've signed up to table with the archives in the Historical Museum on Wednesday. I wish I had some more showy artifacts to share but we'll see what I can put together this afternoon. I hesitate to spread it all out in my living room again as I know it will never be put away until possibly next spring, but oh well. That's my living room, a workspace more than anything else.

The City and architects' teams had public presentation #2 on the Park Blocks last Thursday. We were all pretty prepared and kind of understand the public engagement system now but it was still hard to sort through all the possibilities. It's another place where there just aren't concrete answers yet and a lot of speculating is going on. The fact is that no one knows what will happen or when, but the trend seems to be to support the farmers' part of the project first, and to put off cutting down a lot of trees until people can be more prepared to deal with that. The maps showing our booth spaces, mostly still in place, served well to calm our members down and let us focus on other aspects of the plans...mostly on the parking, and the trees. While I understand the theory of making the park over to last for the next 50 years, there's no way I support cutting a lot of trees at once. No one will be able to use the park if it is too hot in the center...the cool shadiness is what people love about the southern park blocks. People who completely lose the shade on their spaces will likely want to move...if there are shady spaces left. Doing it in phases would allow much better adaptation. Everyone will miss the fountain. There isn't enough money for another water feature so that needs to be addressed. We need a fountain.

I feel like we as a Market had to teach the community and the teams a lot about our organization so they could understand our positions, and we did well with that, but there is still more learning to do. For our part we all have to learn more trust for the city and it's processes, as we still range all over the map on how we integrate the possible change. Even though I have been telling about this for two years I still talked with people on Saturday who were at step one..."does the city know how much we bring tourists to downtown?" Yes, you can be sure the city knows that. It was an interesting perspective shift for me, far down the road on details and knowing the people we are working with, to hear these step one comments. Reminded me how much work we have done.

I haven't written anything about Fair politics in a long time and enjoyed the breather of the event where those things were little discussed. Focusing on the fun and frippery was such a relief I hate to pick up the hard process work again but we will. I'm still behind on craft committee work and that's high on my list today too. There are things needing to be repaired, or put into place, and we'll have to get some energy for it together. I feel a little lull but it will soon be the first Monday of August and a Board meeting to watch.

City Council meets tonight, so I'll watch that. Downtown is in another safety crisis or the perception of it at least...and everything that happens downtown also happens to Market. We try hard to put on a safe and friendly event and we manage to do that, but troubled and angry people are still roaming about trying to get their needs met and I have to be a part of the solutions.

And national politics...what the fuck. It seems unbelievable that we are still in this place. It's so terrifying that we can't think about it, but that's part of their strategy and it's disheartening to see how well it is working. I'm still hopeful, but it seems impossible that we can continue like this. I can feel momentum. We all want to make it stick, but with the climate emergency on top of it all, I'm just devastated, like so many, that people are not rising to the challenges. I'm doing everything I can, I think. Maybe I can think of a few more things I can do.

See you around! A big thanks to all of my lovely customers and supporters who made my last few months so successful. I really appreciate all your appreciation. Be well.

Back There Again

Fell asleep too early due to skipping my afternoon coffee at Market, and now it's only 1 am but I am up and in that bad zone. Everything has been so overwhelming, and I am working so hard, that it has not been a good time to reflect on anything in the short intervals of deck time I get. Working alone gives me time to think but because the work is repetitious and does demand focus I tend to just get obsessive: I'll go over an incident or thought repeatedly until I get deep into whatever cognitive space it occupies, rational or otherwise.

So I've silenced myself in this refuge, mostly. People read it, and they know who I am, so it isn't so safe as it once was. There's so much I can't talk about, big stakes kinds of things. It's important to keep focused on the end goals and not mess things up with this kind of process where I just need to go through the emotions and put them in order and move into the better spaces where the work will really be done.

It had been going fairly well. I've been working these long days, being super productive, made some beautiful designs and have earned some serious money doing it, all good and satisfying work. This is the time when I make most of my yearly income. May and June and early July, as gorgeous and lush as they are, get little bits of my attention while I produce and serve my clients and do my best to solve problems and meet my other commitments, and I had been cruising along. I like to work hard.

Then Suzi's book came out, and I dragged myself over to the last few minutes of the Saturday event to see the Museum exhibit, and I felt myself in a blossoming period. My mastering phase...my art is not too amateur now to be proud of it, my wit is honed and appropriately used, my philanthropy level is high and my skills put to effective use. My body of work is impressive, and I have some admirable qualities developed the hard way. Reading her chapter about me put my life in such a nice perspective. While I'm still so very vital, so strong, meeting a higher level of challenge than I would have expected for myself, I'm also on the cusp of loss. Next year I'll be 70. It is so beautiful to be seen in flattering light, to be appreciated and recognized. I am proud of myself. But it's ephemeral.

Loss is there for all of us and we grow increasingly aware of it and hope to also better handle it. Most of my avoidance is about spinning it, using my empathy for helping others through it if I can, giving to keep from feeling empty, working hard to keep from sitting silently wrapped in it. I also have been extremely lucky in that I still have Mom for a bit longer, haven't lost any siblings or young ones, and I am healthy and independent. And I love work and have plenty of it. People need me. I get thanked a lot.

But trauma lurks, and even though in the good times I am sure I have healed and won't be triggered and can use my practices to diminish the effects, god damn it to hell I am still tiny 2-year old Dianie down in there. She's pretty kind to me but she comes out late at night like this. It's sad. It is pretty easy to push her over her edge.

I've written reams about it and yeah, this isn't really safe space and processing it isn't really healing. It's kind of attention-getting when I put it on FB. Truly I dislike drawing attention to it so I set myself up badly and am neither happy getting comforted or being ignored. It's best handled in the private office of someone. But incidents must be processed. I get triggered by a set of human behaviors or circumstances that takes me back to times when I was not powerful, when I was damaged. Most people have some degree of that. I've worked endlessly on it, and I know it well, but it always blindsides me at least for some period of time until I get it pinned back down. Like a little monster. Like a wound that rips open. It makes me human and it makes me deeply sad and once in awhile it makes me angry, just a little. I am not one who lets much anger happen, or probably I just mask it so even I don't recognize it.

Today I bought myself a bunch of gladiolas, lots of kimchee so I can make quick salads, many pints of cherries, as many meals as I wanted at Market, and even a pretty 50th season piece of memorabilia, a potholder by Dona Rennick. Bless her, she always thanks me for my volunteer work and gives back to me and is a wonderful woman. Her work is stunning, so joyful and full of color. She had a hanging of flowers in a vase that was the most gorgeous thing. I should have bought it for myself but I am also in kind of a frugal place where I need to prepare more for my old age and am trying not to buy things, and to save. But I do think my life would be better with that on my wall. I do have the gladiolas.

What we are doing, with the redesign of our home, is hard, maybe the hardest thing I have ever done. You all know I have really been diligent. I have put so much time into it, have sacrificed income many times for it, and will continue to do so until we get through it. I hope there will be an end, but realistically, we will be navigating this for the next two years at least. This week I was the lowest I get.

I can't talk about it as you know, but these were my (irrational, I know) feelings: I am invisible, I am not a person here, my work has not been seen or honored, I was just minimized by a comment about my appearance (however well-meant), I am being manipulated, I have been set up, I am powerless, I am doomed, I am derailed, I won't survive this, I can't continue, I am devastated, and I can't reveal any of it. These things were mostly not true, as you can see immediately...this is trauma talk.

I didn't ever even get to anger until I drank a beer, so all that says is alcohol is a destructive force to change depression to anger until it goes to shame. Alcohol can sometimes give me a tiny boost from the initial euphoria so sometimes I use it, mostly so I will either sit down and stop working or get up and finish something boring that I have to do to get to the next thing that I have to do. I don't have time right now to process any damn trauma. I have piles and piles of work to do. Cannabis helps a little too, for a little emotional distance when I have work I can do without thinking about it much. Like dishwashing or folding piles of shirts. But neither really helps. Reading can help, writing always helps. Comfort eating has to happen. I wish I were more of a hugger, but I'm not, so that rarely helps. Work is my best remedy, or gardening, if I only had time for that. I pick berries. I get back to work.

So after the stuff happened I did dive into work after I got fully compliant and decided I deserved to have all those feelings because everyone was either evil or stupid and it was definitely true they didn't care about me and wouldn't protect me. These are little kid thoughts, trauma thoughts. They can't be in play right now.

So thank goodness I am not in this alone. I got some healing today (missed the Empathy tent though) by being surrounded by the beauty of my community and the park we work in every week, by having Suzi come by with some books for me to give away, sharing her joy in her accomplishment and our shared legacy (Library of Congress!!!) and by spending my hard-earned money on myself and others. It was mostly a beautiful, kind day, though not all of it. I'm still fragile and certain people are still a danger to me when I'm in that state.

The things that triggered me are fixable. It was details, it was probably misunderstanding (let's say unfortunate rather than stupid, and instead of evil, let's just say our goals aren't quite aligned yet) and although I may not get to have the healing conversations with those who made the errors, I might. I talked them over with a couple of people, beacause I had to, and got some sympathy and understanding and support. We have a strong team and a strong position and our outcomes are defined and reasonable and we can continue to work well and effectively. But the timing still sucks. I lost a day and a half of work last week, and will lose at least a day this week and have to skip Tuesday Market. I don't have that kind of time to give away. I really hate it when I am working on 4th of July while everyone in the country is eating hot dogs. I really really hate it when I am moving out to OCF without having had the time to get properly organized. It's awful when I order too much or make too many of something that doesn't even sell or run out of something that does. I hate it when Monday of Fair arrives and I haven't had the fun, taken the night walks or bought the special things or hugged the precious people with the full attention they deserve (I do sometimes hug people.)

Sacrifice is noble but also self-sabotage on some level, but I will continue to serve and thus to pay. It will continue to be worth it, and I absolutely know how grateful and appreciative my community is. Almost all of my irrational feelings stated above have been put into perspective and aren't chewing me up inside. I've had dozens of imaginary conversations where I "straighten people out" and "let them have it" and "make sure they get it" and all the weird statements of revenge and punishment that come out of abusive treatment that carries along through the generations. I don't generally take those imaginary conversations to the level of sharing them. I put them in my journals maybe and I definitely obsessively repeat them when the sleeplessness comes around. But when I get with the people, I am polite and I give them the benefit of the doubt and it is usually a huge relief that all of my interpretations were not accurate. Everyone else is also trying to do a hard job, and none of them are perfect either. We can try some more.

I can hope for an apology, or I can ask for an apology, or find a framing that is neutral and will take my hurt to a helpful talking point that will work to change the underlying condition. All things are possible. I know not to let it fester. I can speak some of it and will have an opportunity. I have written it here even though it could be read by the wrong people. If they do read it, and get it, maybe then they are the right people. And the right people for me, my regular readers, they can have this little time with me again. I always feel bad when I am not writing. It's too bad those joyful posts I compose on the way home, slowly biking past the rose bushes and under our superbly benevolent street trees, don't often get written down. Pretend this is one of them. Remind yourself, as I am now, how short this night is, and how long and lingering the day will be tomorrow, warm and bright.

Taking a Moment

Spent this lovely day on the deck in the breeze drawing flowers for a design I'm doing for the Saturday Market staff who will have a booth at Fair this year. It's exciting to have a bigger presence at Fair, especially now, in the time when Fair is large in the world. I love the design but now that it's almost finished and I spent my day off on it, I feel trepidation.

It's probably not good enough. Nothing that I envision comes out as well as I imagine it, never has. I tell myself if I had ever overcome my beginnings and learned how to accept instruction and formal training, I'd be so much more skilled. Never studying art except by the doing of it, I can always see my awkwardness in my style. I'm not the type who would go to college now though; it isn't really even possible. I have to keep working as much as I can just to provide some kind of minimal security for when I can't work. No matter what I do I won't have enough resources, and it isn't like some credentials would allow me to charge twice as much for my work or anything. Someday I will take a little watercolor class when I am ninety if my hands still work.

Yesterday was a rough day, even as lovely as it was with so much packed into it. I've discovered that Sharpies aren't permanent and have had several people point out that my hats aren't weatherproof, particularly the logo ones that take so long to hand-color. I don't know what to do about it really, except tell people not to get them wet at which time they put them back and choose something else. It feels so bad to have an inadequate product. I will definitely replace any hat that has run, just bring it back. I'll figure out a solution for the problem too.


I know people didn't get what I was saying on my post about this new design. Very few thought it through to see the upside-down logo which is an artistic statement carried through 30 years from a joke for the OCF 20th. The peach upside down does look like a butt with a stick in it. It just does, so Mike and Ed made a kind of mean shirt for the 20th. It was hugely popular because people are always ready to criticize and there is always shit to sort through. For the 30th I made it into "Turning the Sacred Upside Down" which was my way of being philosophical about how we can integrate our darkside, and I still like that one. The 40th was a failure ("Still Seductive") and I had to give them away but this one for the 50th is rather beautiful and has the sincere message to Stay Grounded. Lovely leaves and flowers emerge from the peach when it lies on the ground and regenerates itself.

It's a good design but if you don't like the peach part it is apparently offensive. People also found the Sacred one offensive. As an artist I should be easier with my ability to offend but I am too much of a people pleaser and I want everyone's approval. I'll get over my disappointment. Forget posting designs on FB though. People don't know what they are saying. It's a fully finished product. I'm not going to make it bolder. I printed like 80 of them. I made it subtle on purpose. I did a complicated color blend that took forever. I wasn't asking for suggestions. But apparently I wasn't clear enough what I was asking. I was too subtle.

A lot of times when we are trying to be clever we fail. I can't be this sensitive if I am going to be powerful. This is a great time to toughen up. Leave the insecurities and triggerings behind and just forge ahead and do my work. At least the Elders shirt design is pretty good, if I don't point out all the flaws and inadequacies. It makes a lovely tote bag. I guess you shouldn't get it wet.The shirt says Elders on the bottom with the two dates, and I think they liked it. I think it's a good one, though not the best design I ever made as I wanted it to be.

Another thing that happened yesterday is that it was slow (we are suffering the loss of the many track meets and their tourism, and don't anyone forget it. They didn't care if we have a two year recession while they build that behemoth stadium which will be pie in the sky someday.) When it's slow we sometimes have some great conversations. Yesterday it was about UFOs that are real and the future that we almost can't discuss because it is way too real. It's hard to live with that terror, but I'm not moving to fucking Mars. We're going to save ourselves somehow if everyone will just get serious and stop flying and driving and ignoring the problems. Thank goodness for the young people.

So we're having a fun time chatting for the last two hours of the day and a guy comes by and asks for MAGA hats. Of course I politely say I would never make such a thing and then he lamely tries to continue, saying Andrew Jackson was a great human. By then we had all just wished him away and didn't even respond to that, but now I feel like he needed to be called on trying to bait us. Coming on our home ground, where we work, and saying racist things should be called out in some way. Ignoring was the best we could do so as not to spoil our lovely camraderie we were enjoying so much. Maybe I will think of a proper response to a racist coming into my space and deliver it the next time.

And I'm glad we didn't have a fight. Some bullies came to our meeting and it was intense but fascinating, because we didn't buy into their tactics. I feel like a year or two ago we would have been a lot more accomodating of bullying but this time we all knew what it was, exactly what it felt like and how not to feed into it. Skilled people responded appropriately and we gave some options to move forward and they slunk away without getting their way. It isn't over, but I really had to wonder if they had thought it through at all. Did they think they would bully us into their fantasy solution? They must have. I swear if some men don't evolve a bit faster we are going to start wearing our pussy hats every damn day. We did some nice healing after they left when we evaluated the meeting and left feeling clear at least. But a meeting that was going to be a good one turned ugly and that was sad.

At least we got the good news first. At least we got our work done and didn't suffer any lasting damage. At least we are clear that we support each other and our staff and we don't use unfair, unevolved tactics to work through our problems, we work in community to make decisions that will last and feel good. I'm proud of my community and what we've learned in the last 50 years, and keep learning.

I'm grateful for the good people that surround me and shaking off the residue from the bad. If I can just get a day on the deck once a week or so, with some flowers and a good book (I'm just finishing Horizon by Barry Lopez) and soon I will open Suzi's Vol. 2 and see what made it through the edits about me and some of my Fair friends and acquaintances. I'm proud of her and found the Museum exhibit spectacular and pretty comprehensive. They are lucky enough to have some big artifacts. SM doesn't really have those...not sure if any exist out in the world, but our lack of storage and our need for mobility for our event has resulted in not a lot of amazing junk like Fair has.

I was super interested to see how the framing worked since I am attempting to similarly frame Saturday Market history, and while I felt quite overwhelmed at how much I don't know about curating, I also realize that it won't be just me doing it eventually. If it gets to the stage OCF got to, there will be professionals involved. I can't imagine getting it done by next May, but you never know. I had a good start on it until I got too busy working. After Fair I can get back to it (and actually will be tabling for a day in the Historical Museum during the County Fair, on Wednesday July 24th.) Maybe I will get a chance to talk with curators and history nerds then and make some progress in how I envision it. Maybe I AM adequate to the task. Anyway I'm doing the task, so I will just have to damn the critics and keep doing the work.

A productive day, going from depressed and disappointed to strong again and ready for an intense week. Nothing that was supposed to be delivered last week arrived. I don't actually have anything to print this week, just one impossible piece of art and some things to order for art that will someday materialize. The end of June is going to be pure working hell so I will have to savor this day on the deck as I may not get another. The weeds will have their way with the garden and the lettuce will bolt before I can gather it in. I will try hard to get the garlic dug before Fair. I have found that if I don't, I can't find it after.

We shall see what the week brings. I guess I should take a minute and recognize that I made three amazing new designs and I still like them all. That's unusual. I printed a lot of shirts this week and will print a lot more, and will have some bucks at the end of it to put into my tiny savings account. Or buy wood and plumbing parts so I can forestall the sinking of my old houses into the ground they stand on. Good thing I'm so strong and youthful!

Just Write Something To Grease the Wheels

Practicing writing for the book and history displays about the Market. Obviously this would need a huge edit for a display, and maybe even more detail for a book, once I work out the structure it would take. I have a good idea for the book, something Erci Witchey told me about this other book I was writing. I plan to use it for both projects, eventually, at least in some form. It's called mirroring. I would take something from one part and compare it to another part, and make my points inside that structure. We started by framing our first history poster as Then and Now. It was mostly about our sites and an overview, and you will be able to see it this Saturday right next to my booth! Come by and tell me some stories.

I also think it would be an awesome way to feature some of our artisans. Do a profile of Gil Harrison another of our early potters, next to a profile of one of our potters today. Do the same with a jeweler, a printmaker, and so on, and in the process show how techniques, styles, technologies, and crafts have evolved through the work of the hands of these members. I love the concept but I would need to develop some interviewing skills, which I don't currently have. And it would be tough to write about people who have died...there just would probably not be enough information available to write a good profile. However, that particular book coule be kind of simple perhaps, featuring one signature piece and just enough of the artist's statements to tell the mirrored story. Anyway, it's one of my ideas.

I wrote this piece after I had just finished reading all of the newsletters and minutes from our first decade, everything I had at the time. I have since found more sources, about six more boxes of old things, and JoAnn told me she had saved every newsletter! So now I need to go back, figure out what I am missing in the newsletters, and see if she will let me borrow hers to make copies. I may develop more insights through additional materials. I'm thinking that each decade probably had a theme of sorts. Considering all that was going on in our world in the 70s, experimenting seems right. Perhaps at some point I will write more about the politics and the alternative community and how Market fit into all that. Now you can see why Suzi's book about the Fair is two volumes and she still didn't tell every story. These are big stories.

Saturday Market in the Seventies

Though based on an ancient tradition of artisans bringing goods to the commons for a market day, a weekly craft market was a novel concept in 1969 when Lotte Streisinger and her group of craftspeople and artists decided to create one. They had successfully mounted craft sales events for a decade and were part of a renaissance of handcrafting. The 1960’s cultural shift toward more authentic and natural lifestyles contrasted with what was seen to be the bland disconnecting lives of the 1950’s Americans, and Eugene became a center for seekers of healthier choices.

The founding values of having crafters sell their own goods directly to the public, on public space, outdoors and in as simple a fashion as possible proved to be popular and accessible. Though the first rainy market was small, the new gathering grew to uncomfortable size in the City-supported Downtown Mall, and some rent-paying merchants resented the group. After Christmas, the founders looked to find Lane County land, which seemed more abundant, and faced a different set of conditions.

The County Commissioners required incorporation and liability insurance as conditions for even preliminary discussion of siting. Though the group had only been charging $1 per space, they now needed to spend $500 to incorporate and $800 for insurance. They formed a Board of Directors and had the goal of being a 501(c)3 nonprofit, though subsequently finding that they could only qualify as a Mutual Benefit Corporation, which is not federally tax-exempt. They decided to structure themselves as closely to a nonprofit as possible, and set up not only the decision-making Board of five, but a Market Committee, composed of everyone who attended any particular meeting. This level of democratic management fit the community of artisans well and often Committee meetings included well over one hundred participants. When a space lottery was included, three hundred members would show up. Policy discussions were thorough and impassioned, and policies were hammered into shape, by a consensus process learned by many community groups of the era.

The County Commissioners were reluctant to support the Market but did allow them to stumble toward stability which finally came on the “Butterfly” parking lot across from the Lane County Courthouse. The first full season of May-Christmas happened there in 1972. The gathering had been embraced almost instantly in its first season by the public, and although it took a little longer for the downtown merchants to embrace the benefits of increased Saturday traffic to their businesses, several community leaders helped support the fledgling organization while it worked through its internal challenges.

Those were many. Volunteers governed and managed at first, and though the County required a hired manager, which soon grew to a team, salaries were very low and benefits were subjective. Winter layoffs when the Market was dormant guaranteed new managers nearly every season. Volunteers were still needed for many functions and the idealism brought passionate energy to every decision. Often the Committee would reverse Board decisions or the Board would have to survey, assess, and make decisions for the group for the common good. Every area of operations and philosophy had to be debated, and the first decade was highly experimental.

Should the Market open in April or May? Could the overflow of interested crafters be handled best with a Sunday event, a lottery system, or something new? Could food be sold, and how? Would it be a good idea to incorporate nonprofit groups for free, as a community service, or should the event try to be nonpolitical and sales-based? Decisions had to be made about fees to accommodate both the higher earners and the beginners or artists who failed to sell well regardless of their dedication to craft.

The fee structure changed often as expenses increased, as staff retention became a goal and the number of selling opportunities blossomed with the popularity of crafting. The Saturday Market intentionally mentored other markets as a way to keep the event small enough to fit in the 250 spaces

of the lot, and markets were started in Portland (1974) as well as many smaller towns. In 1975 a popular manager, Lou Elliot, used his on-the-ground training to move to manage an indoor venue that became the Fifth Street Public Market. Originally pitched as the next evolution for every crafter, that development encouraged some 85 artisans to move indoors, where the everyday gathering space also appealed to the community. The nature of the Saturday gathering changed with the need for it, and some wet weather years helped shrink the event and eliminate the viability of the Sunday markets, which ended in 1976.

Conventional advertising was discouraged but promotional events began early, such as Easter parades and Egg hunts, Tricycle and Wagon parades, and a pet parade before it became apparent that pets would be a continuing problem as the temporary restaurants increased. It became accepted by the public to bring kittens and puppies to give away on the surrounding sidewalks, and despite discouragement of the practice, it continued for the first decade until finally being controlled in the next. As a lively and unusual event, the Market attracted many types of individuals who had their own goals, whether that was to show off a costume, a performance, or a baby cougar or chimpanzee. Both animals were seen briefly in 1975 before being asked to leave, and the continual appearance of parrots, ferrets, and even a truckload of rabbits, meant to be meat, challenged the managers. A gallon of worms was permitted in the produce booth. The “No Dogs” policy had been set at the very first market in 1970, as essential as “Rain or Shine.”

At first busking was seen as panhandling, which was illegal at the time. Free entertainment was a welcome addition, however, so the musicians and mimes were asked not to appear to be begging, but to step up their professionalism. Paid entertainment developed gradually as the budget grew healthier, but soon the newsletters listed individuals and groups who are now legendary (and some still appear!)

Christmas markets were difficult in the weather and privately owned indoor markets developed, though the Saturday Market continued to be held each week. Many years there were several indoor Christmas markets to choose from, with predictable effects on the volume of crafters on the Butterfly. Still, sales potential for the season was attractive enough for the crafters to develop ways to stay warm and dry. Booth models and tarp arrangements evolved as the craft professional remained determined to adapt.

A Food Committee formed as it became apparent that regulations would bring conditions that required careful management of the risks of selling in hot weather, by inexperienced operators, and in outdoor conditions. The County Sanitation Department worked along to educate, inspect (every Market day) and secure compliance with licensing, and the Market tried covering licensing costs until the operators were doing well enough to manage their own costs.

Produce and other farm products were always considered essential to the event but farmers struggled to participate, preferring to sell from trucks. Early years included consignment produce booths managed by Market staff, and a farm or two tried having a booth. By 1978 The County had done a feasibility study for a separate Farmers’ Market and on June 23, 1979, the first Lane County Farmer’s Market was held at the Fairgrounds, attracting twelve trucks. It grew to as many as twenty-one, but the season and decade ended with a better solution still up in the air. Saturday Market continued to pay for the Farmers’ Market manager, permits, and costs, often at a loss for the budget.

Newsletters were created back in the day of the mimeograph with its purple ink. Usually 81/2” by 14”, they were given to all vendors and contained not only instructions for parking and registering properly, but minutes of meetings of both the Board and Committee, and creative stories and drawings of members and staff. Various logos and lettering styles appeared, graphically representing the evolution of the Market image, and in 1977 the basket of flowers replace a pushcart drawing. “The Basket” persisted as the iconic logo to the present day, although it was redrawn for special occasions to include holly or hearts, and for the 50^th season in 2019 it appeared as a more realistic, antiqued treatment of flowers, signaling a shift that will likely continue into the future as the Saturday Market reinvents itself each season.

Patience

That old homily about Patience being a Virtue is misleading I think. It's a skill. I'm still working on it, noticing today how directly related the lack of skill in patience is to obsession, second-guessing oneself, and other irrational responses to distress. Obviously for me and my circle, waiting for all this political shit to settle out has been excrutiating, particularly as we watch the progress of our lives being so quickly dismantled in such destructive ways. It's more than daunting to even stay informed.

Week before last at Market loading out was finishing up and someone roared down 8th in a big frustration about traffic, I guess, though who knows what the real story was. Another member who sells big items was slowly loading his massive trailer from his booth on the east block...carrying each item across the street on the green light, loading in the careful sequence that we all have to learn to fit everything efficiently on our trailers or in our cars. I've seen him park in lots of places that are generally not too convenient for him, because all those people with cars have to work together in another and less controllable kind of sequence. I don't really know him but he looked at me and I looked at him and we both started to say "Patience is a Virtue" but neither of us finished the phrase. We both were exhibiting our patience, and it was a warm moment of recognition.

I thought about it all the way home as I do, biking home from Market tired but satisfied, writing blog posts in my mind. All of us do a lot of waiting, and have developed plenty of strategies to keep calm and fill in the gaps while we do so. As a creative writer, one of my worst habits is making up stories about the non-response.

Electronic communications have set the expectation of rapid response but as people grow to avoid the stress of that, some go to impulsivity but many just shut down and let the messages drift down in the inbox to obscurity. It's way easier to put off responding until it may not be necessary than to commit in writing to something we may not actually do or want to do. It bugs me to be on the receiving end of the non-response but I have encouraged myself to learn to use it. Impulsivity is not as functional a response to distress as patience. Setting the dilemma aside can clarify it. I try to journal about it so I can lay out my rational arguments in sequence and allow my feelings while also trying to craft a clear communication about them.

Then I try to respond to the situations in what I think is a rational and calm way, but of course in emails or texts (with someone like me who refuses to use emojis) often rationality sounds like coldness and then I second-guess myself. I have to reread the messages and look for ways they might be misinterpreted, while I resist making up stories about what the other person or persons are thinking and doing but not telling me about.

Naturally this is a huge problem if I act on those stories. It's good to be old enough to have made that mistake enough times to see the patterns. It's usually something emotional at the core, something primitive like "You don't love me" or "I'm so damaged I can't communicate no matter what," or even simpler things like "I can never get my way" or "That person is just impossible." Patterns can easily be seen and pointed out by someone not involved, which is where empathy can be so useful...the listener could say "It sounds like you feel confused about that," or some other response that helps get down into the base distress that is causing the adaptive behaviors. I am aware of most of my patterns but I would not say I am aware of all of them. Things are subtle deep in that subconscious.

Skilled manipulators use confusion and distress to push people into their traumatic reaction zones but mostly distressed people just cause their own situations to get worse by imagining negative scenarios. That's what I've been fighting for the last few days (maybe months, actually) as I have some big, not controllable situations happening in my life that I am responsible for navigating.

I've been trying to use reminders like "What is the best that could happen?" and "What's the most important goal that you really must take a stand on?" and then remembering that I am not in control of the situations, just my reactions. Just my patterns.

So how about if I don't flare up, don't get discouraged, and don't second-guess myself. How about if I continue to wait for things to become clear, especially if there is indeed time to do that? How about if I apply the non-response technique to myself, as well as to the situation? How about if I have some faith in myself and other people (but oh no, that brings up religion...)

Other people can be so helpful in this process, but I usually employ silence as my helper. I listen to my internal dialogues and try to assure myself of things. I say what someone else would say, such as "You don't know that for sure yet," "There isn't really any proof of that." Or I ask more questions, or I just use gardening or work or writing to get me through the anxiety to a calmer place while I wait.

That damn Mueller report situation was like that, and it did deliver satisfaction but will still need tons of patience applied. I've been reminding myself of other times when it was (almost) this bad, coincidentally other Republican criminal administrations and corrupt regimes in my own lifetime, as well as historically. Learning about the racist regimes of the past, the geopolitics we know about, the times we've been barraged by forms of deceit that didn't fool us, and remembering my past responses has helped this time too. All of this stuff is a continuum, it's always been happening, and my little thoughts and actions, while significant in my sphere, are only a tiny part of that big reality. My job is to keep learning and keep holding on to what I know is right and true.

I used to make a lot of political t-shirts and I stopped doing that, for one reason because it dominated my retail day. All of my conversations became about reassuring other scared people that we would prevail, that things would get better, and checking in with each other about brutal truths served a good social purpose, but was way too hard for me to do every week. As it is, my products touch on environmental issues and of course politics still comes up, but images of birds and plants are much easier to exchange. I still engage in many social conversations but one reason people come to Market is to enjoy their community so I don't want to be the center of all things dysfunctional in our world all day.

I feel guilty about that though. I still have good ideas and a soapbox with the power of dissemination but instead I am putting the things up on social media, which I can turn off and walk away from so I'm not as captive. I've been posting "Get Him Out" on a lot of threads. It would make a good hat. I might just make a few radical hats while I sit in this obsessive distress. Really it's environmental issues that need my help though. I kind of fall into a rabbit hole there.

I'm selling products. They are manufactured, whether by someone in a foreign country using plastic or by someone in Springfield using cotton canvas. Cotton uses a lot of water and I haven't gone organic on those bags yet. I would jump to organic hemp and will continue to try to get there. I would use locally made hats too if it didn't mean big changes when I need stability. Woulda coulda shoulda.

The convergence of Earth Day, spring itself, my 69th birthday, Mother's Day, and Founder's Day is overwhelming me. The amount of things I am negotiating right now is way too much. It's making me shut down and hardly do anything. I haven't been able to work on the archives much at all for a month now. Mom's book is getting really close to completion. I'm trying to draw several important designs that I need to do right now. I'm trying hard not to freak out.

So I sit and write this. One by one these things will resolve. Patience will help some of them, or I can go back and try a different type of communication on the ones that might need that. I can go out in the garden and see if I can find out where those bumblebees are nesting. I can finish The Overstory so maybe I won't have to re-reserve it at the library. It's pretty good but I'm still deep in the distress parts of it. Most novelists know to end with some hope and joy so I'm counting on Richard Powers to do his part. At least I get to sit on the deck and read a bit so I am enjoying the good weather and feeling productive. It's a writer's job to read too, to keep building those skills. I'm going to need them. I'll get back into the archives with new inspiration. Founder's Day will help.

See you tomorrow for a non-rainy Market! Yay! Full on spring!

Speaking Only for Myself

That's what I created this blog for, to talk to myself about complex things and work them out through writing. I like to wander through an essay without much editing and just get my thoughts down. I don't often think about repercussions but of course there have been some, so I will carefully say that I am not speaking in any sort of an official role for anyone or any organization. I'm just doing my thinkng out loud.

Big things are happening for the Market as we navigate the changes at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza and Terrace. I've been keeping my thoughts mostly to myself so things can proceed and settle down and I don't inadverdently fan any flames. I've written my complaining posts in the past about what I perceived, being resentful of my efforts being taken for granted, paying for people who were opportunists and feeling like I had no control about what was happening to "my" event. I gradually lost my self-righteous ownership as the activities increased and I was always conflicted about the truly needy and how similar it felt to me to when I was a hippie with some of the same political goals to subvert that dominant paradigm. It took a lot of processing and looking from various perspectives to get a grasp of what was even really happening, as it wasn't any one thing. It still isn't a simple situattion over there.

In the past year or two I viewed it as the Market's community service to support those artists across the street who were genuinely trying to make their way. Our economy now is much more harsh than it was when the Market started 50 years ago, but the obstacles people face as they try to invent themselves are much the same. Everyone has to start somewhere. Expenses to have a safe and "free" event have mounted significantly and it has not always been the case that Market members were willing to tax themselves enough to really make it work. Our values have changed over time. We want to pay our managers well so they will stay with us and love us back. We want to be respected by other businesses and by public entities. We want to respect ourselves, and we want to thrive, not just get by. We're mostly willing to put our money together to meet our goals. It has been working and we are thriving.

For the first few decades we had to work out our rights in what we had been taught was a free market economy. The Saturday Market founders had faced the music rather often by the time I arrived in 1976. Fees were kept super low (it was $3.50 when I was first selling over there, with the 10% of sales,) but there were still days I didn't want to pay that much as I got established. Being always a person who had learned to value honesty ( I got disciplined a lot as a child for lying or just obfuscating and not taking responsibility) I appreciated the faith put in me with the honor system. I knew how to rationalize the times I didn't comply with the full intent of the law. My finely developed sense of guilt did prevail mostly.

Today I'd fight hard to retain the honor system, even though we know people rationalize. Offering the opportunity to rise to the highest levels is the finest way to operate, in my view. Of course the general moral values of our society have been seen to be declining, as maybe they are, but if we play to the lower values we all lose as we are forced to become authoritarian in our policies. This is most certainly not the time to trend that way, no matter what the conditions!

So I support the changes on the FSP, even as I'd like them modified a bit as things settle out. I empathize a lot with people who feel they are being forced back to blankets with the ban on structures. I would personally prefer to allow them, with weights, or at least to build in some exceptions under some conditions. But I don't make policy for the DAZ, and neither does my Market. That is up to the City and County and their attorneys. It is up to the public to give feedback and advice to the governments on those policies, so I have faith that over time a more equitable solution will be found than just an outright ban on structures for shade and rain protection. But that is what we have at the moment over there. And Market has had booths over there in the past when we needed to grow, so that part feels pretty natural. Parking was blocked and one of those spaces is a handicapped sticker space that was unavailable for use. So that needed to be dealt with. Tourists and other customers, and the sellers themselves, needed to be safe over there. And there had to be space for real free speech. Losing that gathering space for protests, those being forced down to the cold Federal buiding, without a plaza, has hurt our community. I want protests to have the audience of my Market, especially those about climate issues and authoritarian, cheating governments in chaos. I want to yell from the sidewalk in support of those on a sunny Saturday.

I suppose I show my age and privilege and relative comfort that I am willing to wait for the public process to evolve and am not up in arms over any particular position on the changes. I had accepted that it was not Saturday Market and we didn't have the desire or right to make policy over there. I could see the parts that are enjoyable about it, the actual freedom of expression that was happening in the drum circle and in people who were just beginning to find ways to use their artistic expression to support themselves. I have sympathy that it is hard to join an organization and pay them money when you are really on the financial edge. What seem like acceptable fees to me would not have when I was in my twenties. We didn't have a membership fee then. Over the years since we instituted it, it has grown to $50 from $5. I can afford it now, but not everyone can. The $25 annual DAZ permit is reasonable. Registering in that way is a step that helps the person access services that are unfortuately not free to provide.

It is still hard for plenty of Market members to make it work financially, at the mercy of weather and customer whim. I know exactly how lucky I am to have developed good-selling products. It's not easy and I have certainly failed at it many times since 1976. I'm mostly stubborn and determined so I've persisted and now it's pretty hard to change. I don't have the resources to stop working and do something more self-indulgent like writing all the books I have on my list to write or read all the ones piled on my coffee table even. I have a vague plan for how to make it when my body gets even less willing to keep up with my desires for complete mobility. I'm at risk and in denial, and I still like to build compassion for others into my thinking in an effort to balance out my relative comfort and privilege.

It was hard to bike down there last week. I was sooooo slow. I had put off getting my bike tuned up but now I have done that so it should be easier this week. I resent that it might rain at the end so that means I have to bring the pop-up and weights. There is nothing harder for me than to haul 75 pounds of sand down instead of a tub of hats. But I don't want my booth to fly away and break in the wind and I'm already doing my little rationalization about my missing 4th leg which still technically requires 25 pounds on it somehow. I bring an extra tall grid to rest that corner on and it complies with the spirit of the law I expect, so I have to call it good. I'm going to continue to do my best as I learned in kindergarten.

I always try to make the best balanced, most reasonable accommodations to reality that I can imagine, but often I see with a start that I have been blind to something glaring to others and have miscalculated. I think that is what happened on the FSP. Politically and realistically the "free" market was very attractive and coherent to some people but the glaring reality to others is that someone was paying for what those sellers weren't. All of us paying fees knew we were bringing the customers, renting the bathrooms, supplying the security and staff that kept it all running smoothly and safely as much as it did. There was just kind of an energy sink over there that was somewhat balanced by the drum circle beating out our heart rhythms, but not fully.

Most people using the space intended and did no real harm to us across the street, but they did not actually enhance us either. Balance was needed. It was inevitably going to feel harsh at first. We had talked about a long, gentle negotiation where gradually leaders emerged who would take responsibility and organize accountability over there, with involvement from supportive nonprofits or other entities committed to progressive solutions. That just did not emerge. I patiently waited for that and tried to support that solution but this quick change is probably much more practical.

I believe it will settle out into some improvement. A lot of people feel better. There was an overload of police presence and I'll never enjoy being surveilled but generally there was compassion and responsibility was developed. I am hopeful that conditions will be found that will allow change within reasonable parameters. It's rather looking like a middle way to me over there although I know it looks more radical to many. I can retain my acceptance that it's not something I personally control, nor do I want to control it. I just want it to work as honorably and honestly and generously as possible.

So that's my two cents. I think the community gradually came to a consensus on most of it. I think we can navigate the rest in good faith without blaming and fighting. I've always been an optimist. Too late to change that. Of course I have also always been a cynic, but there's a balance in there.

Until some glaring light shines in my eyes again...and I blink and reset my thoughts. I guess I'll write again when that happens. In the meantime, I will see you Saturday! Rain or shine.

The Fire: From the Saturday Market Archives

Please note: This blog is not an official Saturday Market forum or set of posts, but a personal one of member Diane McWhorter, who happens to be archiving the Market collection this winter in preparation for the 50th season. 

In the Saturday Market archives, I stopped last night just at the newsletter announcing The Fire. It happened on May 2, 1982. It was arson.

This was when the Market was still on the Butterfly and stored equipment underneath, in two rented parking spaces with various schemes to protect it. They used a chain, but the chain got stolen. In 1981 there were six times the stuff was vandalized, spread all over the place, and whatever was of value was stolen. The fire, on a Sunday morning, was clearly arson, probably done by someone passing through who had also targeted a similar organization in Seattle. I haven't read all of the details of the recovery yet.

The leading up to it is compelling though. 1981 was a very wet, terrible weather year for an outdoor Market. In addition, in 1980 a national recession struck, thanks to Reagan I guess, or the usual things that cause recessions. Here in Eugene it was rough, with lots of people relocating to find the elusive jobs. A government program, CETA, would give people $300 grants to buy tools. It wasn't a great time to be a craftsperson, but at least that was a job. I was painting signs then, and managed to live pretty low on the food chain, though I had to sell all manner of little things at the Market to get by. It was a little before t-shirts for me, so I made cards, calendars, and painted some amazing signs for places like Mr. Moto's and Poppi's, La Primavera, whomever I could find. Hundreds of us created our own jobs and held on for better times.

The Market on the Butterfly had at times held an overflow for its 250 allowed spots, but not that year. Vendor participation dwindled and while there were always a lot of food booths, growing to 40 once, people without jobs weren't buying a lot of crafts or art until Christmas, which had always been solid. Christmas Fairs throughout the 70's were generally two weeks long, every day, long days, but enough people were still left to sell on Saturdays that in 1981, for the first time, a five-day run of the Market was tried. It included Saturday Dec. 19th, and went through the 23rd. The rest of the December Saturdays were just the usual. Fees in those days were $3 plus 10% of the previous week's sales...this structure turned out to be fatally flawed, as on a bad weather day, people often didn't return to pay their fees from the previous good day, and when it was a good day, people might be paying on the previous week's poor sales day.

It's important to remember that the Saturday Market was the first of its kind, so the whole decade of the 70s was experimental, and often the parts that didn't work well were hard to change as quickly as they needed to be fixed. When attendance was lower, so were the numbers of interested, dedicated volunteers, and the balance needed of volunteers and staff could skew. No one wanted staff to work for free, but often the winter closure resulted in staff quitting rather than waiting out the three months of no pay. At the time, staff retention was recognized as a huge benefit to the organization, so we had two great staffers who had worked for a few years by then, plus a few hard-working volunteers, just not enough of them. We budgeted for staff to work at least some over the winter, so even when there was no income, there were expenses.

As you might predict, because this is a bit of a tragic story, the extended Christmas included renting 20x20 tents for customers, lots of great entertainment and special attractions, and lots of advertising, with the attendant big budget expenditures. Fees were raised to make it work, but it was all about vendor numbers, and it rained. It rained so much that one day was described as "the rainiest day ever." I think I remember it. There was 5 inches of rain, and the nine or so of us that stood under a covered area didn't quite know how we were going to pack up and get home. Rent for the Butterfly went from $40 a day on weekends to $500 a day on the weekdays, as the County wanted to recover the costs of the lost parking revenue. We were paying for all night security too, for the booths left on site.We were paying for useless advertising as no one came like they had when times were good.

Suffice it to say, the budget was busted. In January the leaders of the Market started trying to get loans, and to get a handle on how big the deficit was. There wasn't even a solid Treasurer at the time. It's a little hard to figure it all out from the records as all the 1981 newsletters are missing, but during the winter the staff salaries were deferred with promises to pay when things improved, an April opening was decided upon instead of May, and various fees were proposed. A $5 membership fee, and a Season Reserve fee were pitched. Reserves were in place then, but this was a discounted amount to interest people in early spending to pay the December bills. It worked, as did asking for donations, but it turned out to be a deeper budget hole than was known, and everyone kept digging of course. It was never mentioned that the Market could just roll up and quit, after a successful 12-year run. It was too vital to the community, too much a part of the cultural art scene. It was called "The Cradle of the  Arts Community of Eugene" by the head of the Eugene Arts Foundation. And the economy would turn, as in 1982 the Hilton Hotel, whose balconies overlooked the Market, was scheduled to open.

Market Staff sold the promise hard, and April happened! Reforms like same day payments and raffles and promotions helped. The newly renovated info booth

looked fantastic, tables and benches were improved, there were 25 great food booths, but it hailed on Opening Day (April 3) and rained the next week too. Craft artisan booths fell to 60 and 10 food booths didn't show either on that second week. May first, however, brought the new city-aupported Imagination Celebration, which involved a parade, a Chimney Sweeps Festival and Lookalike contest (was this Mary Poppins time, or just David Stuart Bull?) and things started blooming. May first was hopeful.





But early the next Sunday, arson completely destroyed the new Info booth, all of the ten tables and 30 benches, the Lucy Booth, the stage frame and awning, all of the signs, sandwich boards, banners, flags, tools, bulletin boards, hose bibs, everything useful and necessary to put on the Market. It was estimated at $7000-10,000 but it was almost all handmade and beautiful and not really replaceable. The Info booth in particular had been made in a UO workshop, designed by architects, and handbuilt by volunteers in 1973, and was a work of art. Moreso, the community was devastated. On May 8th, members gathered for a circle and dug deep.

It was a difficult year, and leaders emerged who could dedicate time and effort, many of whom still serve the Market or support it. Still, the lot looked empty all season, and various schemes were tried to present as a lively, happy event, while privately despair sometimes emerged. Bills were gradually paid but none of the grants applied for were given. Finally in the fall, the Market wrote to downtown business leaders and politicians, asking for an Advisory Committee and some help. A move to the Park Blocks, the original location the Market had wanted in 1970, was requested.

It was granted! The Market was allowed a trial period of December and the following April, 1983, to see if the members would work together to sell in the lovely park, with only 125 spaces, (now stretched and finagled to 250 again) to revitalize the organization and continue the important work of holding up Downtown on Saturdays during the recession. The downtown mall needed the support, and by then the merchants and public servants well knew the benefit of the large Saturday event. The City Council voted to grant the Market $1850 for moving expenses, and on November 18, 1982, the First Market in the Park was held.

Even though success was still hard won after that (the 5-day Christmas Market failed again) history had been written. The Saturday Market rose from the ashes. I have a little baggie of the ashes for the archives. It's a most compelling story, and such an embedded part of my own history that to me, it explains a lot.

Fire galvanizes. It did that for us. Within a year I was on the Board, painted almost all of the Market signs for costs, and worked together with people I still work together with, to do what needs to be done to keep the Market on track, thriving, and ready for more.

I know what it feels like to sell in a parking lot, and then move to a park. I know what  it means to come on rainy days and sunny ones, and how to have the long, sometimes philosophical conversations necessary to guide and keep the Market for the longhaul. I know how it feels to be part of an ever-changing, ever-passionate community of creative, loving people who just want the best for the community and for ourselves, able to integrate our self-interest with what is best for the common good.

I'll write more as we go along, since there is so much to tell and I am practicing for the eventual book, but I wanted to share my deep feelings as I sort through these folders and piles of papers and tease out what really happened from what is said and remembered. The truth is that our community has the resilience, the strength, and the passionate dedication to not only survive the challenges of the 50th season and Anniversary, but to project beyond it for the next 50 years. I won't be here for all of that, so it might have to be you. Don't stop caring about us. We're worth it.

Here's the link to some of the vintage photos of the old days. We were so young!