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!