Full of discomfort and anxiety...getting in touch with my fragility. I feel the compulsion to work through it or I wont be able to sustain the work that is before me. Right now I can't even finish up Facebook and get to printing the big pile of shirts I set out for today.While I work I think, sometimes obsessively, about the things I would say or do if I weren't working, writing blog posts and having conversations in my mind while my hands are too busy to do anything else. I spent Sunday immersed in catching up on OCF volunteer work, typing minutes and letters and thinking hard about the conversations we've been having.
And in the evening I watch livestreams of Portland, emotionally joining the Wall of Moms to protect my kid and the kids of all of us, who are now on the line as we were in the 70s. My PTSD is running high, and I want to be of use, but my emotions are all over the place and my impulse is to hide and be quiet.
Saturday at Market there were too many people for me. I'm not ready to resume the normal flow of commerce and community. I did okay as the day progressed to the quiet that comes at three...it slows down then and I welcome that. But I heard some drums from the west and up 8th the traffic was stopped and a protest came through. This one was "Speak Up and Dribble" (the reference to a pro basketball player being told not to speak out months ago) and featured kids and adults dribbling basketballs down the street.
The structure of these protests now is cars in front, cars behind, and people on bikes and walking keeping the perimeter safe. There were yellow t-shirts identifying the particular mini-movement of the moment. I grabbed my sign and stood on the curb and joined the chanting. I started to tear up right away. I held my sign higher and yelled louder, grateful to hide my trembling chin behind my mask.
Everyone stopped at the center of 8th and Oak and they dribbled for 8 minutes and 45 seconds while we held up our arms. I can't actually do that with my left arm but I gripped my sign and did my best. It was a very, very long time. I had moved to the corner with a small cohort of my fellows and saw others of us in the street, and I assume the Market stopped, as I left my booth completely and didn't even think about it. The immersion into the long moment was compelling.
This was really my first in-person chance to worship the 8:45 as it deserves to be observed. I wept the whole damn time. At the end we took a knee. There was an ebullience, but I was full-on triggered and after it ended I waded right into the crowd to give a donation. I didn't even think about how close to everyone I was until the person I found to donate to hugged me...one of the maybe three times I have been touched in over six months. The first intentional touch. It didn't fully scare me until later that night, but it scared me good. A hug of gratitude.
As I returned to my corner I noticed things...a man in the protectors had a sidearm. He emanated safety and peace, though. A drunk person approached me, too close, to ask about my sign, did I really believe there was white supremacy in the US? At least I had no trouble answering him. I said yes, absolutely, that the country was founded on it, and if he didn't think so, he needed to read some history. He was slow but I felt that he wanted to argue, but was a little cowed by me. I decided to go back to my booth, so stepped back, and then I noticed that on my left was one of the guys who had been biking the perimeter. He had been watching that drunk guy, and was there to be my back-up if I needed one. Again, I sensed his presence as calm, safe, deliberately watchful and protective. This touched me in a new way.
I cry now to realize how hard everyone works at these protests to stay safe. The masks, the cars, the people in black or in shirts, all are there to keep us safe to speak (and dribble.) It helped me stop crying and finish the day. Typically my triggered episodes last a few days, with an aftermath of shame and weakness, and this was no exception. But as usual I try to keep operating and thus instead of a real rest day that I needed, I spent 8 or 9 hours immersed in OCF. At least I got caught up. I had to defend myself against my bully, but she really has no power over me now. She is so clearly against the flow of history and the moment that she has no real power over anyone.
Then Monday, instead of watching the City Council public forum on the Park Blocks, I virtually went to the Diversity Work Assembly. This was after printing about 250 shirts and folding them, which took all day in the heat. I got a notepad and started jotting down my emotions in a running stream on the right as I took notes on things I might want to remember to report on to my fellow crafters. I didn't identify any boothpeople in the assembly except two Board members but I may have not known them, and there were people from booths that aren't craft booths, such as White Bird. But I felt like I was out there representing and that scared me. I didn't want to be wrong and I didn't want to be right.
One thing I have learned about identifying racism is that once I see something as racist, I don't really go back to thinking it is okay. I want justice. I have a lot of work to do that BIPOC people have learned all too well, about patience and breaking big things into smaller pieces, about bringing people along and meeting them where they are, about making the changes workable by addressing what is possible now, what the goal is, and how to take it in steps so it will stick.Because the big thing, that we have to address in my world, is that the Booth Rep System is exclusive. Call it racist if that doesn't confuse the issue, but the word "succession", when people use it, gets a visceral reaction. Giving property to your kids is elitist. Not everyone has the privilege we old members have created for ourselves within the structure of Fair Family. It is ringing hollow for me right now and I know I have to dial it back and work through it to some practical path that will work for the thousands of people who will be shocked and appalled and fight like hell to keep what they have.
We will say we have earned it. We will defend the hippie credo and how inclusive it has always been and how hard we have worked and how much we have spent. We will identify our ownership but not how that prevents the ownership of someone else. It will take some people the rest of their lives to deal with the emotions that are coming to be processed due to the moment we are in. I'm no exception. I don't want to do the things I know I should.
When I put myself out front, just twice, I didn't say everything, though I felt I said too much. We old lady crafters have a way of making things about us, centering ourselves, and I did that, to my embarassment. I did some other subtly racist things, like wanting to please people and wanting to seem like one of the good ones. I saw myself looking toward some of the BIPOC people I know or am acquainted with, for approval or help. I forgot to write my emotions down on the right side of my paper and was soon trembling and re-traumatized and so I'm doing this today instead of using the cooler hours for work. This is work. This is compelling work. There will always be shirts to print. (Maybe...)
We will have a lot to do. I am feeling my fragility and need to be building my strength. My bully is at it again, trying to oppose progress and paint things in the worst light imaginable, and fighting her has gotten so old, so tiring. I'm grateful for the physical space and isolation to feel safe, but my fucking neighbors who are hoaxers keep invading my space, using my driveway, walking on my sidewalk, making me fear my own front yard. I need something, some counseling, some real rest, some real space, and should probably go out in nature and sit. I should probably not force myself to work.Dear world, I knew it would get harder to survive as we near the brink, of climate disaster, of constitutional ruin, of the apocalype that some are trying to create. My eternal optimism isn't going to be enough to get me through this. My previous ability to escape isn't working any more. I just find more to be accountable for, more people to reassure, more reasons to fight and reasons to be afraid. I dont know how to feel safe, don't know how I ever did.
This weekend I admitted that what happens to the Park Blocks is peripheral to me now. Something I put countless hours into over the last two years is something I don't even care about now. I watched the City Council after the 3 1/2 hour workshop. It was another hour and a half. It was inconclusive, and no one spoke for Market. I wanted to and heard my absence, but I have nothing to say. Fix the concrete. Help the farmers or don't. Take away all the parking and add some bike lanes, whatever. I have lost my drive to make it work for me or anyone else. I don't feel involved.
After saying we could not miss a single selling day or lose a single member, we missed ten weeks and have lost dozens of members. Now people are starting to die in our circle. Now things are getting critical in a life changing way. Now I face real loss. What I have built could die too.
Now is when I find there is no reassurance, no support that will help, really. This will all take the strength of legions, all working singly from home to make something completely ephemeral, real. It has always been that way, of course, when creating the future. We have never had certainty and we never will. We were always completely at risk and at risk of losing the glamour we spun over it all.
