Small Pleasures Department

Easter morning when I was about 10, so 1960 or so

I was almost ecstatic at finding a bag of flour stashed in the cabinet...trying to evaluate if I can manage for another month without shopping. It's only a pound, but it might tip the balance. The things I need are mostly still self-indulgent, so I'm trying to resist. Think how wonderful it will be to have them again after we all survive this.

I'm trying to wear some optimism for longer periods. I realized I will be mad at myself if I let this opportunity to meet some goals slip by. I already know I can complete one year of archiving per day if I apply myself diligently...and here comes 30 more days, which is just about the right amount of time. Doing the writing for the Saturday Market history seems so pointless when we don't know when we will open again...but then it IS likely to happen, so how great would it be to have that project ready? It would be fantastic.

Or a fantasy. I have not had the focus to work at that level of diligence...but I could try harder than I have been. Self-disclipline is in my skill set. It always feels good when I apply it. Instead of cutting down on coffee like I have been, I could have a little afternoon coffee time. With a cookie.

We had a zoomie with the Radar Angels last night, and it was indeed so wonderful to see everyone's faces and hear their voices. Singing was not satisfying but we could refine our techniques...for some of us it was our first zoom. We wore hats (I made two Jell-O headpieces for the occasion.) and we got out our stuffed animals like we were kids. We had some hilarious suggestions for songs if this ever gets funny. No one thought it would any time soon, but someday we will be looking back at this.

We had one report of someone in our community in the hospital with the Covfefe. I don't know who, as we were all reluctant to give health reports yet. We each talked about the ways we felt vulnerable and things we had been doing. It ranged from studio time to serious distress, and we are lucky to have some really good empathetic listeners in our midst. A special thanks to Mark Roberts! His mother is having her 100th birthday this week and he cannot celebrate with her as planned, but he was still there for all of us and will continue to be. He is treasure to our whole community. Empathy is one thing in short supply, though everyone is seeking more of it.

I watched the Jell-O Art video that MKAC made several times and shared it all over the place. I looked back through my Jell-O Art blog (Gelatinaceae) to see if I had saved any links to videos and found the one of the 30th show...it was in 2018. The video was kind of slow and too long and I would not say we sounded very good in it, but it did show the ending when we gave away the gold roses and that felt pretty good. Seems like a decade ago now. I looked cuter and younger than I remembered.

I guess I had better make some cookies with my found flour, which I can use to reward myself for getting to work, which I plan to do today. It looks like I need to steel myself for a longer ordeal than expected, because we got the official notice that Market won't open until May 2 (subject to change.) It should help to have more certainty, help everyone relax a bit, help everyone re-prioritize things and work through their emotions. Some will qualify for unemployment for the month, though I am not sure if I do.

I know above all I do not want to contract the virus. My best choice is to stay at home, period. I can use whatever negative energy I have around self-denial and deprivation to work through unexpected things...make piles of things to get rid of when the time comes, work to use space better to help me feel better in my environment. Emotionally prepare for bigger losses and know I did my part not to make them worse. Be resourceful and channel my inner Girl Scout. Simplify. Exercise. Read.

Solidify. I have so many disconnected communities with my different organizations, and I can connect them more for myself. I can connect myself to them more strongly. People are desperate to feel that connection. I have this ability to articulate and I have abilities I am not even using. I can use Mark as my role model, and offer my skills.

This really isn't a good time to be too self-indulgent about allowing my own desperation. This could end badly, for me, or for you. I want to be a warrior somehow. I will try harder.

And I'm going to write more like this, even if key people in my life don't even read it or want to. I have heard from a few people that it helps them. It helps me. Sometimes we should indulge ourselves...as in the words of my Java Jibe song:

I love eating, I love food
So many things I eat are oh, so good.
I accept that, I like myself fat,
Indulge, indulge, why judge? Get over that. 

The Jell-O Art Show Review!

https://www.facebook.com/163294500385785/videos/768533626886757/

Thanks so much, Maude Kerns Art Center. Hope in a hopeless time!

Joy is always needed.

Love,

Queen Gelatinaceae of the Jell-O Art Realm

Scrying the Dark

Introspection seems to be my top choice these days, getting in kind of deep now and then. What I thought I might do as a very powerful exercise is fill a dark bowl with water and stare into it as a way to bring to the surface deep emotions I have been keeping drowned in there. It's something I have only done once and is super powerful so maybe today I am just writing about it instead of doing it.

My brother called me this morning and we talked for a long time. He lives in Sydney and calls me while he walks along the bayfront in a park near his house, a place I walked when I visited him, so it's easy to picture him doing it. I guess it was really early in his day today. We got on to some unplanned subjects but it followed from my journalling today and was deeply gratifying. We generally have a lot to work through from our shared experiences, and I think we heal each other most of the time. He's skilled. We're not afraid of each other. He's one of the few people I can say I truly trust, and it's good to feel that.

The things I have been bringing to the surface are emotions that are part of the grieving many of us are doing, in my case, mostly shame and guilt from the past. I seem to have a deep bowl there. I feel like it is useful to see what comes up in my memory, feel that emotion as clearly as I can, and write it down. My journalling is super useful to me as I know I don't lie to myself in there. No one reads it, and it's not meant to be shared, so I just ramble around being myself and then I rarely even reread it, though I do save it. I have piles and piles of the journals. I don't hold back.

Generally I find my journals too painful to read again, but some of the really old ones have historical information that is good to know, Early on (I've been doing it since about age 19 or 20) I noticed that I repeated myself a lot and that helped me face some things that were hard to face, for instance relationships I needed to extract myself from. If you keep telling yourself something you should give yourself a listen. I sitll remember many things I wrote to myself in my younger days, and they pop up in my memory as lessons for today. One that came up yesterday after I got my little delivery from a kind friend was "Outlaw self-denial; it's rarely necessary." That came from some psychologist I read a book by, and I keep trying to tell that to myself. It has a couple of levels, the giant subject of denial in general, one of my most powerful practices, and the physical self-denial of depriving myself. Deprivation is one of my main organizing themes that has worked through my life and I know I keep mentioning it.

My brother today suggested some AA techniques and I will give them a try, since the goal with those is usually some type of self-forgiveness or at least progress and that would be good for me with some of these examinations that repeat. I see this work as a kind of ascending spiral, in that each time you come back to something, you kind of get to a new level of it, hopefully a higher level I guess. Anyway, I feel the need for a little goal-setting within this period that is so productive in some ways and so unproductive in others.

Day after day, I am not getting to the tasks I assign myself, the physical ones like exercise and cleaning and printing things and volunteer tasks I have taken on. All of them will need to be done at some point (cleaning is endless of course, and exercise is just maintenance and the avoidance of it has its own consequences.) I read an article that described this non-productivity as a trauma reaction and that seems true. You can't see much point in cleaning your desk when a tsunami of grief could be lapping at your yard.

If it were sunnier I would be out in the yard but we're looking at a week of rainy cold weather again. In one sense that is discouraging but in another, I welcome it. I feel like all this writing and thinking and feeling and sharing of the feelings is good for me. From the reaction of some readers I think it might be good for others as well. Regardless, I am compelled to continue it and we'll see how it goes.

I find I don't really want reassurance from others, or even acknowledgement, with most of it. Sometimes I want a pat on the back or maybe I want a little direction...my brother gave me some ideas and I found that worked for me. My son suggested a film scene that resonated...I plan to watch the film later this weekend if I can get it on the library streaming services. I have been getting great value from Facebook these days with all the things people are posting and sharing, things that inspire or soothe, even things that horrify and challenge. I am welcoming all of it as long as I keep a safe distance.

I have noticed for a long time that I like to keep people a little bit in the middle distance in general. True and close intimacy brings up so much noise and confusion that I have to take it in small doses. I function pretty well in this internet world where it is all on my own terms and I can turn it off and walk away. In my normal life that I'd like to resume, I had the one peak Jell-O Art process that involved months of fairly intimate collaboration and then an explosion of emotional release with so much approval and shared delight that it lasted in an overwhelming way for a couple of weeks, or anyway, hours. Sigh.

Then I would have Saturdays at Market, one day a week so full of every kind of emotion and sensation that it would take several days before and after to roll with it. Opening Day was supposed to be next Saturday. I think that is going to be a difficult day. I will be home alone and glad to be so, but it will just feel like loss. Unretrievable and deferred potential, uncertainty and fear. I will not be the only one "going through stuff." There will be hundreds of people feeling that loss. We'll have a community in that, a community set aside at least temporarily, some of which we hope to salvage and piece back together. Nobody knows what it will be like to put it back together or when we will get to do it. And Fair is the same for me as Jell-O, a huge and sustained effort with many levels of intimate collaboration, and then that explosion. We might have it, and we might not.

The waters have not crashed over us yet. We have not yet been fully swept away, with the attendant loss of loved ones and opportunities that will not return. We sit in dread. We can't do our work and we can't sit still. We are trying to rise, every day, to this challenge and do our best. We are in trauma.

Yet, we are still together, finding new ways to be that and new people to love. We are busy inspiring and feeding each other. Some of it tastes bitter and some fills us up with sweetness. We gaze into the waters, and what will rise, we don't quite know. We don't want to find out, yet, we have no choice.

We do know it will find its level and it will accept whatever we throw into it, our tears, our fears, our joys and the detritus we no longer need or want. Water is cleansing. Washing our hands is our current metaphor.

What we are experiencing has a very clean aspect to it, raw, but real. This is not the way our society generally functions. We are used to a ton of artifice and shiny obscuration of what is really happening. Nobody I know is still seeing that glamour. Everyone I know is seeing through things right down to the core.

I believe we will use this power. We will gain from it the way to reclaim our planet and our souls. We have to be patient, and then not fool ourselves into trying to recreate the false shiny. We want, as we have always wanted, the real.

How to Hope and Care

It won't be helpful to anyone, especially me, if I just recount all of my fears and dig deeper into despair. I've always actively blocked that progression while at the same time trying to sit with my emotions and at least try to name them. It's interesting to me how my fears have changed over this last interval. It has to be in the context of the last few years to be of future value. I write it all in my journal every morning but when I look back at the dense pages, I don't know if it will ever be very useful.

Losing track of the days a little, so I looked back to see when the last time I left the house was...only a week ago really. Probably only went out three or four times in the last month, to meetings mostly. It was nice to be able to sit in a room with people. Gonna be awhile for that. At least we have the internet.

I feel myself getting more selfish and wanting even more isolation, which doesn't seem to be the way most people are feeling. It's so easy to talk yourself into holes without anyone to disturb your perception. For me the meetings were the way I would force myself out of the house to be social. If I had a responsibility, I would meet it. Now that I am relatively free of responsibilities, my motivation level is low.

I see those lists of disciplined actions that would be good to take. Clean something every day...yeah, should. That excuse of not having time has thinned. I have been working on cleaning up my reading piles...all those old New Yorkers and Funny Times are going, unfortunately into the recycling as no one wants to touch things previousy touched by fellow humans. Having a lot of "what's the point?" reactions to the actual work I have on my desk and in the shop. Feeling productive is the point...I do feel satisfied when I am productive. But the days slip by and I congratulate myself if I even do the dishes or move some projects ahead a little bit. Working in the garden to secure my future food supply was helping...hope it warms up next week. Wish my neighbors would not use so much Febreeze or whatever it is that turns my air toxic. I feel like viruses are constantly drifting over from their partying lives. I get angry at them.

Reach out to someone...yeah, no. I'm finding myself less interested. Isolating as the norm might break some of us more. Fears accumulate in our bodies and there's no way to counter them right now. Music sounds hollow and naive. Looking to celebrities for inspiration just makes me angry.  But music has those chords that move the heart. Crying a little helps. I'm into Alicia Keys today, and her many collaborations. I am so glad I don't live in New York, but glad I did once, so I know what it feels like. Why it is important.

I miss Colbert, though. I'm now in the habit of watching the late night shows, have been for quite awhile, though I have little tolerance for reruns. I have been enjoying seeing Jimmy Fallon at home. He has an amazingly playful house, that although it makes me resentful that people have so much money, is fun to see. He's trying hard to amuse us and he's endearingly human. Colbert actually started scaring me with his drinking and I have to marvel at myself for thinking that these are the people in my life. It's hard to see myself as someone who spends hours watching TV. Yet that is what I am doing.

I just got a text from an old friend who is bringing me groceries and plants...I am floored and tearing up at that kindness. I've said no to other offers...I don't see myself as kind and generous enough to deserve the help. It's a poisoning that's happening as we separate further and further. I admire people who are going the other way, and vow to follow their example. Ask what I can do to help instead of what do I need? It's that deprivation damage...holding on tight to everything in case it becomes even more precious. Forgetting how good it feels to share and let go and see someone enjoy something. Deprivation got in deep in me and maybe this is the time I move through it. I am noticing just how much I have stockpiled...I have a lot of safety and abundance. I have gathered that for myself, and that was a form of love. I miss having a child at home to focus it on.

Being strong and staying strong isn't a quality, it's an effort, a process. A series of choices. Every day, every hour, we get another chance to do better. We don't have to be kind, we can be a little kinder. We aren't feeling good, but we can go through the motions and notice when we feel a little better. We can offer comfort or just listening and push down our anger and disappointment that we are not offering more and better comfort or less-selfish listening. Just do a little.

This is not just a waiting game. It is indeed a transforming. It is a time when we are called to work, to work on our assumptions and our neglecting and our inadequacies and our forgiveness. We have to start at home alone. I have to forgive myself.

I have to hope for myself, and then I can also hope for you. And I will, and I do.

It's Real

Silk painting I did a few years ago

I'm glad we live in a state that believes in Science. But now we are staying home until probably the end of April, at least. It is daunting.

I failed to really plan in a few areas...won't have enough oil, so will have to do more baking and less frying, but that's not huge. Might run out of coffee. Will run out of alcohol...the drinking kind. I have been wanting to drink more...might be the suggestiveness of Facebook, or just the way I can deny I am an alcoholic when it is available...one beer a week or one cider, doesn't seem too debilitating. I learned long ago that if I have it, I will drink it, so I minimize what I keep around. But now I have one beer, one cider, and a bottle of wine for the whole Apocalypse.

I was going to stop at Kiva today and get a little more, but couldn't justify it. The idea of someone or me contracting the virus so I could drink was not a workable one. I did have some checks to deposit, but I put them in the mail. I could also make a quick trip out...to the Newf down the street, to Albertson's, to anywhere, to get a growler, to get a bottle of gin, I have lots of choices, but I am deciding not to be desperate. That momentary euphoria is not worth death. Which is ironic, as alcohol use is always a death risk, like smoking, or driving, but we pretend otherwise.

So we'll do less pretending. I went through my seeds to see what I could plant and salvaged some used potting soil but chances are good my seeds will damp off or they're too old. I will need a drive-by by my favorite plant grower if he is allowed to go out...are plants for the garden a necessity? Seems so. I guess if he can sell at farmers I will suit up and get a Burley-full. Not sure if Farmers will continue to sell.

Some things are necessary...it becomes subjective. I know my washable tote bags are convenient, and safer than plastic, but no one is doing any shopping. Hats, no, not necessary. So I will sit on my nice complete inventory and get it ready for when the day does come when we can gather again. It might be a long while. Maybe June.

People are saying at some point we will decide what amount of death is an acceptable level and we will resume our lives despite the risk. I already saw people relaxing their vigilance. I was about to. If the staying home works and we reduce our "numbers," people will take more risks. I think we'll see lots of fluctuation instead of a straight curve, although right now it looks like the US graph is going to shock the world with its rapid rise, because of our lack of national leadership.

I'm calling it the Covfefe Virus. Maybe that is what he was trying to get out in that old tweet. It does sound really, really bad. I think for people like me who are generally very healthy and tend to minimize things, we will see some very real danger. I have unlimited capacity for telling myself it is a mild case and I won't get sicker, if I do start to see symptoms. At the same time I am thinking I have it with each cough, each little aching muscle. My young neighbors next door have done nothing visible to protect our neighborhood, in fact they've been doing the opposite. I am trying to give them lots of space. Chances are very good that some of them will be sick or already are.

It's easier for me to frame things as if I already have it and don't want to spread it. That is what will keep me from making that quick trip to the store. I do not want to kill anyone with my stupidity and selfishness. I will be stoic and draw on the strength of my ancestors.

There is almost not one weed left in my yard. I took full advantage of all that nice weather and now want the rain to get those plants going strong. If I stay on it, when I get strawberries I will beat the squirrels and jays to them. I will eat that kale and broccoli before it bolts. I will empty out my freezer so when we do get fresh fruit again, I'll be ready. It's a good time to be strong and to get stronger.

I will work on my selfishness. I've noticed that with deprivation, I personally do not get more generous. I get generous when I have abundance. Now I am getting more frugal and much less willing to share. I'll see if I can work on that. It's all about fear. When I know I can get more, easily, I am much more willing to share. That goes for everything. Money is the worst.

This will also be a good time to work on not dissolving in fear. Brave people are staying home and keeping their community safe. I have lots of ways I can help from home. I'll be you do too. Look for the helpers, and be one whenever you get the chance. Be safe. Try not to worry too much.

And don't just hear what you want to hear. Get deeper. But somehow, stay light.

Emotional Hunger

I'm feeling emotional hunger. I keep trying to feed it comfort foods but of course they don't even really taste good. Or if they do, it's over quickly and I don't really feel better. I don't know when I will feel better.

Every day I have felt buffetted and bruised by whatever develops. Each one brings a worse bit of news, another lost opportunity, a new pain I hadn't anticipated. I get angry fast and eveything hurts. I spend a lot of time conversing with myself in my journal, as it is one thing that calms me. I guess I feel if it is recorded, it's more real. And it helps me work through it to some kind of more peaceful acceptance.

I went to Kiva yesterday but I won't go again if I can help it. I spent too much money and my needs are overwhelming. I know I will run out of things I like, that are somewhat helpful, but I think maybe I can turn to cooking and baking and not have to endanger other people by wanting tapenade and cider and fresh bread. I'm good at self-denial so I can live on some pretty plain fuel if I need to.

I'm vowing to stay in. I don't even know if I can. I will have to do a few things out there, but I'll try to minimize it. I generally love isolation but this is too much of it. The prospect of doing this for another month or more seems impossible. It's a sinking feeling.

I know one of the best things I can do is disconnect and get involved in a project, and I have some to chose from, but I haven't had the energy. Nothing seems important enough or worth the effort. I don't want to waste this time, but it seems I have to spend some time first grieving.

That's what it feels like, grieving the losses. Most of them haven't even happened yet. Fair hasn't been cancelled yet. No one I know has died or even gotten sick. There's a flush of activity going on online that is a kind of delight as people find things they can do to connect, and some of it is lovely. I suppose the online opportunities will just continue to grow. It seems like they can only grow to a point, though, and then here we still are alone in our kitchens, waiting for this to be over.

It's the strangest thing I've lived through, following the most bizarre few years of my external reality. The political situation, the many hours I've spent working toward this Park Blocks remodel, this giant project of trying to encapsulate Saturday Market in words and notebooks, this aging process that will have me turning 70 with no party, all of it.

I'm questioning why I think it is so strange. It's just my life, things I've chosen and things that have happened, and what did I expect? Maybe I didn't expect anything, maybe that's the problem, maybe I should have had some expectations. I feel things emptying out and leaving too much space.

It's reasonable to think the Park Blocks won't be remodeled. The stock market tanked so badly, and the City has had to spend so much on this current situation, that it seems like Town Square could be derailed. Maybe not. People are still working on some things. Not everyone's projects and events have evaporated. It could still be happening. But I don't have much enthusiasm for it. I worked really hard for over a year, planning and working for something that seems very remote at this point.

I really want some certainty. That could be my biggest want, just something to be pinned down and ready to be planned and worked on. I should really do something concrete. I'll try that tomorrow. I do better when I am working.

I hope you all are doing better than I am tonight. Be strong.

It's Exponential!

Tote bag design is back, on black!

Just when I thought I was getting old enough to have a contracted life with few surprises...HA!

I've already been isolating since I got back from Delaware in late February. I have some confidence that I am not a carrier and my environment is clean, so from that little bit of relaxation I can look outward, but it's not a pretty picture.

My neighborhood is sweet. Some of us checked on each other yesterday...we're all staying in and waving as we do yardwork. I will try now, as things ramp up, to not even go to the store, because so many others are not yet paying close enough attention. I live next door to some 20-year-olds. They do not appear to have changed their mobile habits. People who work in stores have to keep working, but I don't have to bother them. It's the time when love can kill.

I find almost all my real fears at the moment are about money. That's just an ugly reality that I am trying to get deeper with. I don't think I'll really run out...I will run low, but surely it's just deferred income. Once we get to be out in public again, people will still want my craft and I will still have work. I'd set up some online marketing but then I'd have to be going to the post office (or they'd be coming here) and I will probably do that. I could do some drive-by drops perhaps, but not right now.

I started to put up a promotional post about my new black totes, but then it felt so selfish. This is the time to learn all about our selfish parts. While mostly we've excused them as normal, now they can be deadly. At almost 70 I certainly know people who could die from this virus. Lots of us are compromised with one condition or another. I don't think it's hyperble to try to save lives by staying home. It isn't panic. It's caring about others.

I actually have plenty to do. All of the de-cluttering and cleaning I've neglected for so long would be a pleasure to complete. I've done a little of it. So many organizing tasks are possible...the photos, the different types of archives I'm needing to get up to date, the endless piles of past work, art, t-shirt samples, tchochkes. I'm not going to run out of things to do. In that sense this is a welcome, wonderful vacation.

Black tote bags will sell whenever I can get them out

My orchid is starting to bloom. My yard is full of lovely Narcissus, my peas are up, the birds are amusing and endearing. I saw an Audubon's Warbler at the suet. My dreams are full of cranes and crows. I'm sleeping well, and there's no pressure to get up early. It's luxurious.

Managing fears is nothing new to the self-employed. We've never had economic security, since everything hinges on our ability to work. I'm ready for anything, as long as I don't get sick. I already bought a lot of stock, which I will sell eventually, even if it takes a year or more. My events have savings, so they won't go bankrupt if they can't be held any time soon.

I did have to do some mourning for the Jell-O Art Show, since we were so close and it was a lot of fun. We had cute songs and hadn't even got to the part of running through the script and cracking each other up with the improvisations. I get to write the script, so I put in lines as placeholders to carry the narrative, but the actors who deliver them make them their own and sometimes they do it during the show. No one even really reveals their costumes fully until right before the show, and it's always much more hilarious than expected. So it was a pretty big emotional loss.

But I had been complaining that I was tired, felt overloaded with work, wasn't that excited to make Jell-O. I take it all back now. I will treasure the next opportunity we get to do such a thing. I hope I use that thwarted energy to infuse my regular life with more improv and singing and silliness. We all need it.

It's okay to keep moving, but change directions. There will be some silver linings to this time of reflection for us all. The environment will take a breath, free from our rat race. This regime will surely fall, hoist on its own petard, as they used to say. We'll remember compassion and neighborliness, as we did with the turn of the century glitch that didn't really happen.

Sometimes the peach eats you

Greet death, with courage, as we all should be doing already. You can believe I had a lot of regrets about going to visit my Mom. She's 94. I kissed her, I used her dishes, I was in her space for 3 days, after passing through the Seattle airport, where I drank from a water fountain. Coming back was even scarier, as I sat next to people at post-trip meetings, and tried to be careful. Her place where she lives is now in lockdown (not because of me) as are all retirement facilities, but they are all completely vulnerable. Someone I know pointed out that young people who work in those facilities often have multiple jobs or trainings with possibly contaminated carriers...it has just barely begun to spread here, and where Mom lives. Don't fear death, be ready. Same as it has always been, in our denial.

We're going to get through this, and the people who are the most thoughtful, the most compassionate, are going to be our heroes, which will be a welcome shift as we stop revering money and glitz and return to more solid values. We'll support each other, as people tend to do in crisis. Those who are selfish will examine their behaviors and learn. Those who are greedy will be shunned and will learn the hard way. We can hope, anyway.

All we have to do is find our balance and stay with it. Whatever happens, life will celebrate it. I think I will wash some windows. I'll finish the pruning I thought I wouldn't get to. I'll sort and box up things to give away when it is safe again. I'll get the Market archives done.

Now I wonder if I will have enough time for all my plans. This is an introvert's best vacation ever. No known ending, all the time I need, all the quiet I can handle. I'll be writing. Thanks for reading.