There's a Hole in My Basket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csZV3w_nscg

I don't know what people say, it's been so long since I've seen any. I guess Zoom counts. My closest relationships right now are with squirrels, who seem determined to chew up my deck structure. I'm zooming with three groups, which is more socializing than I did before, when it was all compressed into one or two days a week. Not much to say, though.

Market is now put off until May 23rd. More than a month from now...so discouraging. Sure doesn't motivate me to print anything. Or do anything. I'm just shuffling through the motions, trying to accomplish one or two small things per day.

I did scrape some paint today, and put primer on, something I usually do in August. I lasted for about a half hour. I'm trying to be compassionate with myself, as I put on the pounds and crave all the things I don't have, and don't really need. I enjoy being productive, but am having trouble getting started.

Easter got to me, because I realized now that I have put all my eggs in one basket. I always thought I had a pretty diverse thing going, with lots of little pots of money coming in from different sources, but they all just disappeared at once. Sure, they'll come back. We'll have meetings again, and we'll sell, probably in June, July, and August...maybe. But right now I feel like a fool like so many of us who thought we had some kind of security.

I did file for unemployment, and it wasn't hard, so I guess I won't run all the way out of money. I have  social security, all $450 a month of it. I'm not spending much. That's the upside of not selling things...I don't have to buy more. I have enough stock right now to take me for months. I could do Fair tomorrow...but of course we're not having Fair.

Al Green is comforting. I guess it was his birthday yesterday, as I saw on Facebook. I don't even care if it's true or not. Most of my music journeys these days are just random things I find on FB, just clicking on links in case they work a little. Some of them do. I'm thankful for the creativity of others, who are doing a stellar job of putting it out there. AJ just told me to go watch Obama's endorsement, which he said would make me have some hope.

I thought I was settled in until today. I have the archives, and have been working through it slowly. My greater sense of irritation about all things is making it a little hard, and a little hard to love us all. We have some problem people in our midst, and always have, though they are of course the minority. But they keep coming up as the ones who need the help the most, so I want to get to some kind of faithful compassion and forgiveness for us, since we're all doing what we need to do. We made it this far, so we're doing more things right than we are wrong. Mostly we do very well with our challenges.

It's good to see the times when we were strong and making solid decisions, as well as the times of struggle, as I deepen my understanding of how our organization works. Sometimes the combo of Board members or Chair and Manager is just fantastically powerful, and sometimes it falls apart. Things happen, illnesses and things the City says or does, and sometimes leaders have really different ideas of who we are and what we should be doing. Right now I am reading about 1993 when to my surprise, a lot of changes were made in the point system. I've just assumed that it was always one person one point per selling day, but that isn't true! That's the ideal. And there are actually a lot of point systems going at once. It's easy to forget things like that over the long term.

I'm feeling that all this knowledge is so valuable, but I still don't have a handle on how to write about it. I haven't actually sat down and solved those problems, and know that it will take actual writing to do that. I've tried for an overall vision. I've made tons of notes, and outlines and sheets with lists. The challenges of each decade, for instance, or the themes of each phase, but I still have to get it all compiled and studied to really see that picture. I do feel like I can, and now I have a more extended time frame to do that.

But our 50th Birthday is May 9th, and we will not be open. It really spoils the party. I was planning to celebrate my 70th as well, May 5th. I don't really want to have some zoom dance party. I want to cry.

But I know I am just in a phase, a not-so-happy one. It will pass. I can watch a movie or sit on the deck and read. I do have a great book right now, In Search of the Wild Tofurky by Seth Tibbots. It's amusing and sweet. It has given me some moments of comfort and joy.

I can do whatever I damn well please. No one is watching, no one really cares much. Everyone is fighting for their own composure and staying power. Some are fighting for their lives and to feed their families. I am one of the privileged ones, with my own spaces and my own yard. I could be a little happier.

I'll do the dishes. It's always better to look at a clean kitchen and then maybe I will make a cake or something. Cake would help. I'll just start celebrating those birthdays today. And every day. Al wants me to stay together. He wants me to dance. But yes, I am so tired.