Back in the House, No Escaping Ourselves

It wasn't easy to break isolation to sell at Market. I still don't know if it was the right thing to do, but of course finding the right choice out of the many these days is exceedingly complicated. My loyalty to the survival of the Market pushed me to risk my own...I bought in a little to the idea that it was safer out there than I imagined it to be. I gambled.

It was a good day...just being back in the routine was strengthening, and seeing people I love was overwhelming. I think now that I didn't really look at anyone. I am not easy with eye contact anyway but I don't remember a single person's eyes. It's strange to notice that, when all we see of each other is our eyes now. I guess I was trying to keep emotional distance. I sense people...I feel their presence with all my little tendrils of consciousness but I don't really look at them when we are close. I feel somehow that should disqualify me from being a good person but people seem to forgive it. Maybe they are just as busy not looking at me.

Many things were as normal...Willy and I trading stories and forgiving each other for repeating ourselves. Watching each other's booths, running over to the farm as we call it. Cherries and polenta and tamales and plants and all the things I was out of, and a few more. Farmers on the Butterfly looked good. I thought it was pretty functional, much more so than it could have been with some of the other solutions to their space problems. The parade happened as I scrambled to get set up. I had to wait in line for a space...but I was number one with all my points, so I got Raven's space.

I set up sort of skewed with my back to the fountain to widen the aisle and I liked it, of course missing him a lot. Having the parade without him was a little hard...but they all managed. I got interviewed by the RG during set-up which was rough as always, since there is so much to do to be ready by ten. I wasn't. My plan was to have a table as a barrier so no one would touch anything and before I got that set up a guy came and touched all the hats...he wasn't wearing a mask and he was in my space! He said he had used hand sanitizer but I was completely freaked out and didn't find the wherewithal to tell him my rules...so felt like I had immediately blown my safety plan.

It took a long time to recover from that. My set-up wasn't that functional with all my stock in tubs that were underfoot and disorganized immediately. I quickly put bungies all around the legs of the popup to create a safe space inside just for me. People seemed able to view the items and I would put them out on the table for them to choose the one they wanted. It was awkward but not terrible. I sold a good amount of hats but almost no bags. People need to get closer to the bags. People want to try on the hats. I sort of tried to pressure them to only try one on if they really intended to buy it, but that was not my style and I don't know if I'll do that next time. I might just put the tried-on ones in a tub to quarantine. Or I might give up the notion that cloth items are not safe.

People seemed to feel so much safer than I did. Probably 25% of them did not have masks or didn't keep them on. It does hurt your ears to wear one all day...I tried a few different ways and it was never great. Plus it was rainy and kind of cold so I was just a dumpy old white lady and nothing glamorous. Lots of people visited and some parts of the day were slow and most were fast.

I brought my sign and hung it up, saying "Stop Police Brutality, End White Supremacy." I knew I was risking virtue signaling but I had to have a sign. The protest didn't come, but it was the right thing to do. I didn't see many reactions (because I never look at people...) but I did hear one white lady harrumphing about it. I didn't confront her though I wanted to say, "What? You think we should keep white supremacy?" No one else said much or anything about it. I didn't really do it to open any dialogues, just to make it clear that at least one person at Saturday Market was working on her stuff. At least to make a statement. It's not all just selling things in my Market world.

I am working on my stuff. I squirmed through 13th tonight and will make myself uncomfortable a lot more. I am wondering what level I can go to that is more than watching a movie and trying to integrate new knowledge into what I already know. There is an overwhelming amount of new knowledge, and yet, not that much. It's kind of simple at core. Do I honor the humanity of every other person and fight for justice for black people right now? Hell yeah, no question. Can I stay in it for the long haul? That's a given. I am not going anywhere near complacency.

The questions are deeper. How have I bought into colonialism? I know I was really uneasy about helping shut down the drug dealing on my street, and it played out badly. A young black man was caught up in it. I tried to protect him some, but not as much as I would do today after watching 13th. I feel extremely terrible that he will be in the prison system. I wonder if I would rather have talked the neighbors into tolerating the dealing. We probably weren't in danger, just inconvenienced, and it didn't occur to us that the white guy who is really the guilty one would gaslight the cops and not be busted as well. It should have occured to me. I wonder if I should wade in deeper and if it would be worse if I did. He wasn't innocent...but I didn't protect him either. I actually feel quite sick about it. I'm not quite a Karen, but I sure am an old white lady. I think we did it wrong.

So now at minimum I have to fight harder for better policing. For sure we have some racist cops here and for sure if he goes to prison there will be racism there. I will have to make amends somehow. I don't even know his name, it all happened so fast. Maybe I will talk to my neighbors about it. They are very compassionate people and maybe they can help me figure something out. Sure brings it home.

So, vulnerable, getting down deep into my sins and regrets, feeling the weight of the time and the reality we can't ignore. We aren't safe, and we are a danger to each other. We all have weapons with which we can accidentally kill. We can't really save ourselves and we can't save each other, we just can't be too careful. I never want to leave the house again. I'm guilty, and I'm stupid, and I'm being fooled most of the time. And then there is politics, and Facebook, and the collapse of the republic. I feel like there is no future. It's fairly devastating. So getting up and moving forward is difficult, to put it mildly. I don't want to do anything though I managed to wash dishes. I stayed awake and didn't stay in bed. I didn't fix anything today. 

But I will. I will push myself to go to Market again and do better. Try to look into someone's eyes. Try not to repeat myself. Try harder to forgive, and above all, to learn. Try harder. It's a life and death time. We're all on the edge. Any one of us could fall off, so we had better take a step back and reconsider. Reconsider everything we thought we knew. And keep working. Work deep. Then deeper.