What Wasn't Imagined

This one blog post from last February keeps getting read. It has over 524 readers now, more every day. It is a mystery to me why that one. I can't figure out who's reading it...a hundred people in Japan. The rest mostly in the US. Almost all the hits have come from Facebook. The rest of my posts rarely get over 50 readers.

I did post it twice, since it talked a little about some bullying I was experiencing, and also defended some committee work I was doing that was being criticized as power hunger. I don't seek power. I seek lots of other things, mostly sense of belonging and understanding and honesty and peace. But the bullies just say whatever they see in themselves, about you.

So maybe it got caught up in some FB algorithm. No one shared it, and it had hardly any comments. It was pretty long, so I'm going to say not every "read" of it was a complete one. I might have grabbed readers with the title, which was "Oh, these times." Strangely enough, it was before these times. It was pre-coronavirus.

At that time we had never considered that we wouldn't have a 51st Fair, or a Market Opening Day, or so, so many of the other things we aren't having. We were living in an innocence that we won't have again. We knew things were bad, terrible, in lots of other ways, but we did not imagine we would lose so much, so fast.

My bully hasn't been silenced, but she lost her credibility, as most do, at the same time, building mine. I learned to not react and to just keep working, and I got stronger. I was even more determined to deepen my experience with my organizations, because her behavior was so counter to what I had seen from nearly everyone else in those groups. Everyone else in my circles got warmer, and my ability to feel it grew.

Most people are so tender right now, so wounded, and having to fight hard for that peace and even
stability. I keep filling out the forms for financial assistance, though none has come. My income disappeared, rather completely and abruptly, but I am good at hunkering down so I just stopped spending money. I asked my insurance agent to reduce my bills. I got out my earthquake supplies and started eating up my surplus. I haven't gone out.

Friday I went out for the first time in probably six or eight weeks. I've lost track. I biked to the bank with my stimulus check and the one little bit of income I have gotten, from a dozen hats I printed for a client. He overpaid me, in fact, for his Professional Curmudgeon hats, which he likes to do since he's so delighted to have them. He and his buddies have started a little club, worldwide now, of these guys who get invited to join and they get certificates and the hat and some other ritual objects. They have earned the right to be not just ordinary curmudgeons. And like many true curmudgeons, they are all delightful old guys and not really grouchy, just kind of particular about things. They've learned to treasure it in themselves, and each other.

Learning to treasure things, and each other, is what we are doing really hard right now. Things we already loved, now are filled with our passion and our grief. We don't know if we'll get them back. It seems impossible that we will hug, or even shake hands again. We don't expect to sit shoulder to shoulder in a crowd, or wipe away someone's tears or the stray crumb on their cheek, or push the errant lock from their forehead. We long for our people, our children and even our past lovers. We hope beyond hope that they don't die, that we don't die, from all this.

Some people have just floored me with their ability to care. I've been taken under a wing or two. I'm being thought of, being planned for. It heartens me so much that neighbors will buy my groceries and that my organizations are trying to find work for me. I am afraid, so they protect me.

The OCF community did not drop into despair and depression like I did. They, the visionaries, rose up, it seems immediately, to start moving, together, to restore. To take the values we have built on, and build something new with them. We are going to have a celebration, in virtual space, that is going to amaze. We are going to have things to buy and give and keep and fondle. We are going to build back up, and bring as many along as possible in the doing.

It makes me cry to feel it. It seems such a marvel I turn it over and over in my mind. It builds in me, a desire to join in, to think of more I can do, to be inspired. I feel cared for. I feel hopeful. It is such a fragile, hesitant feeling, and every day it grows.

Like that mysterious post, more people sign on each day. A budget meeting today had two pages of faces, all listening and following, all leaving reassured. We have visionaries. Together, we stepped up. I can hardly wait to feel more of it.

I sent a letter out yesterday, one that I had written in March, to someone I had to make amends with. I had bullied her when we were kids, and it took getting bullied to make me do the hard work to find that in myself, to identify the emotions, both ways, and admit my crimes. I don't think she will welcome the letter, but she's already angry with me so this probably won't make things worse, at least not forever. I tried to use as much consent and empathy as I could find myself capable of. No doubt it will be inadequate, since I am still learning. But I took the step I had time to contemplate, and desire.

In the mystery post, I talked about how we make policy in my organizations, ideally. That really was the meat of the post, though it came at the end and isn't likely the motivator for the readers. However, to me, that's what pleases me the most about the five hundred people. They get to see something that comes from ideals and values, that tries. Something that aspires, and inspires, just one of the ways the community has built what is so unutterably gorgeous now. What is so precious, what is so inestimably ephemeral and light-filled, what is coming to land in our laps.

Something we feared we had lost. Something we will give everything to get back. Something we need.

And if you have a clue who is reading that one post, and why, do let me know. I could try to write another.

Stay safe. There are still dragons, ones we haven't tamed.