Finding a Visionary Leader

 Today will be the last set-up for Holiday Market this year, and then we wrap up the season and pin up a new calendar. Of course most of the work continues but I'm excited about closing the box on this year's archives. It was a hellish year that I don't even want to remember most of. Ripples are still spreading.

I did get a moment last Sunday when Shannon gave medals to me, Colleen, and Teresa. Many volunteers had already gotten certificates of appreciation...mine says I'm Master of Everything. My medal is for Loyalty. I feel seen. If there was ever a time when I had to call on all my skills and experience to keep moving forward, this summer and fall were it. I tried hard to be in my body as the cheers and smiles told me I really was appreciated, right or wrong. I wanted the recognition, but like so many things, I also wanted to defer and act like it was nothing. I didn't do those things for praise. I did them out of my duty of care, and my duty of loyalty. I had to do them, to my mind. But not everyone would rise to those challenges, it is true. Many times I wanted to bail. Many times I let someone else pick up the biggest rocks and I just pushed from behind. I don't like being out front (unless properly costumed, I guess.)

Some of it was shocking betrayal. Working with a lot of trust is naive but hard to stop...it has usually been so beneficial to extend trust and be rewarded with dedication but life is more complicated than that. So many people carry so much damage, and the strongest, most wounded ones seem to have unending power to drag people into their pain. Compassion is stretchy but some people really test the notion that it should always be extended. Our community is generally not that good at shunning offenders and I am in particular super reliant on avoidance to get through things...of course it eventually forces confrontation in a community as intimate as ours. Holiday Market is the place and time where we all have to do our assessments and it's usually a bad idea to chew on things like resolution over the long dark winter. 

But some things...I don't know. The person who sets up next to me on the PB won't speak to me, I guess because he maybe had to overhear some of the shit that was flying about during our hardest times. My opinions were strong and while I tried hard to maintain propriety, others did not seem to understand how much would have to remain more or less hidden. People choose their loyalties and sometimes that is based on individual people. I am more deeply into a type of loyalty that is not about anyone, just about the legacy and survival of our organization and what we all and those who worked before us, have built. I know how it feels when things are going well and I know what has to happen when it isn't.

I was saying that to Colleen after we got our medals. Shannon tried to trick us both into showing up by telling me to prepare a speech for Colleen, and telling her she had to be there to see me get one. I wanted a medal...and my little proud girl knew I had earned one, so I had a little glimmer of desire that I would be honored. But I tried to focus on what to say about Colleen, and be humble. Most of my reflections were about the things she could do and ways she is that are so unlike me: her ability to strategize, to make nice and be friendly to everyone, her ethical standards and great memory. I'm a lot more conditional in my operational self. But I didn't want to speak about myself...just her. 

So I had a whole list in my mind of what she has done for Market...but I forgot most of it. I meant to say that she has mastered a craft we aren't all aware of: group decision-making. Meeting process, making good policy, and doing it with inclusivity, are things she makes look easy and she brings them to every meeting, committee and task force she serves on. Service is what it's about. If she has a strong agenda, she sets it aside as the process unfolds (perhaps that is a goal and not always possible) and she accepts the outcome as gracefully as possible while planning the next steps. We're both committed to building consensus...it's kind of sacred to me, actually, even when I hate the results and sometimes the doing of it, but in a collection of equal members there really is no space for authoritarians and process is how they are controlled. One authoritarian can sure bind up the whole structure, though, and most people won't even see what is happening or know what to do about it. Volunteers often need a rest from carrying their parts, and when authoritarians offer that, we sometimes don't see that our rest was really a concession and we can't get our pieces of the load back. We get forced out, however gently. And our gentle acquiescence to power enables our destruction. I've seen it up close far too much. 

I have enough self-awareness to examine my own need for control and authority, and maybe I hide behind my lack of a vote at the Board level. I enjoy not having to take a position most of the time. I can be graceful about being on the "losing side" of process because it isn't binary. More developments might nudge things back the way I would prefer them. It was humbling to be alone in my opinions a few times this year. Maybe it was the missing consultation with Colleen that allowed me to go out on those limbs. We used to have many long conversations where we kind of landed together on what we thought was ethical, proper or best on various levels, and we haven't done much of that as her time went elsewhere from Market business. I have some pretty strong rules on how to bring out the truth when it can't be clearly stated in public. I believe in the truth coming out...sometimes it takes awhile, but I'm always going to tell it. Sometimes I am so wedded to it I don't think about who I'm telling it to and what might happen when they repeat it. It's the truth though, and it must come out.

Some people are more willing to let a dishonest situation take the place of the truth. It's not that easy to separate them, and we've all seen the power of disinformation. But I'm not here for that. I prefer the narrative nonfiction, the well-told story of what really happened, and that's one reason I will continue to struggle through the archiving, and probably why I enjoy keeping the minutes. I suppose I occasionally commit lies of omission...I'll carefully frame things. I might record them for posterity but just slip them into the archives among the published versions. After a certain amount of time their power to damage is diminished, so if it's in writing, it needs to persist. I may want to include some narrative in some of the archives, for when the strict facts don't explain what came after. But I am decidedly letting 2022 age before I will fully document it. I don't take betrayal lightly. 

And the compassion kicks in, of course. Mean people are in a lot of pain and their loss and deprivation make them do those things. I get that. I've done plenty of things in my lifetime that are not very forgivable, and can't be taken back. I like to think I would try, though. So I'm weighing the idea of talking to my neighbor now, so we can mellow out over the winter, in an intentional way. I'm not moving to another space, and while I wish he would, that wouldn't get us speaking to each other. It's going to take one of us extending a hand. 

He would be one of the easier hands to extend on my list. I don't enjoy having enemies. I'd like to move forward unencumbered. I doubt I'm important enough to have people lying in wait to prey on me again. It's far more joyful to feel settled and I'm hoping for a lot of joy this winter. I need it.

I was watching Craft in America and realized there is one life goal I have not really honored, and that is to be a Real Artist. By that I mean having a warm and cozy studio where I just explore my whims and media and go wherever that takes me, without a thought for production or sales or any rules. That has been the whole world of my Jell-O Art and though I'm less interested in that, I still want to be in that space and flow and to build on that energy. I think my way forward this winter will be writing. I'm getting the sense that I must use those skills now, in this decade, before they start to molder into regret. The archives can be my discipline, but I can reward myself for that work with pleasure writing. 

I don't have to show it to anyone, though a few people have told me they love this blog and want me to continue writing it. It can be a companion to the pleasure pieces, for sure. It will always be useful to have drafts of essays and stories to draw on if I do start to find my skills diminished. My Mom's book came to fruition only in her 90s when I took it on as a project, and I could get someone to do that for me I expect, if my material is good and useful enough. First I have to put in the time to get the words in place.

So that is my plan, and now you know all about me. Before I finish this, though, I do have to talk about one more person, Teresa, who also got a medal. Hers was for Dedication. I wanted to give her a special award, as she says she is stepping back from Standards for at least a year. Teresa has been the mainstay of Standards pretty much from the beginning. She's so thorough and good at it that she has gotten stuck with leading the committee and holding up the flag for too long, but like me, I don't think she really wants to retire. I think she's super sensitive and wants to make sure she is valued in the right ways and seen as she is at her best. Standards is a particularly delicate part of what we do, defining handcrafting and keeping us different from all the many other "vending" opportunities that have developed alongside us as we do our work so beautifully. Technology and commercial processes have eroded the handcrafted niche quite a lot and it's hard to hold on to it. Most people think it doesn't matter. But our high standards for handcrafting sit next to our open standards for participation and that balance is everything sometimes. We are the incubator for artisans and we hold the master crafters as well. We need both. At least a few people have to understand how to protect that balance and how to keep us intact as we're literally surrounded by people selling things made in all kinds of ways that don't really involve one person's hands and heart and don't really promote and protect our legacy. Teresa had that well in hand in her heart and mind and I have always treasured her in that position in our community. It has not been easy for her to fight for that, but I'm here to say there won't be another person that dedicated. She is truly precious to me, and we all benefit from her gifts of time and effort. 

It's so often about a vision of the best that we can be. We didn't lose that, this summer, but only because we had enough people who shared it to keep it in the front of all that happened. We know when things are going well, and we know what to do when they aren't. We have our visionary leaders. It takes one to know one. 

And they need our thanks, and our support. It sets this year off so nicely to end it with all the many ways our visionaries have been honored and thanked. Somehow through it all, we got our visionary leadership. It wasn't just one person...it was all of us. It's like a big group hug. And now we have two more days to acknowledge it, treasure it, and put it in a comfy quilt for a bit so we can bring it back out in April for the whole world to feel. I hope to do my part.  

Making the End of the Park Blocks Season Feel Good

 Decisive weather today. We got lucky yesterday and there was really only one shower, around 2:00, and no wind. I thought the booth turnout was pretty good, and I made very good sales. I had a few nice interactions and some fantastic customer appreciation. Several young people attending their first markets were so thrilled that we exist. I wish we were going to be there next week for their next visit, but I admit I'm enjoying the little mini-vacation prospect of a Saturday off next week. In all these years, they are quite precious. I'll probably waste it cleaning my house or something.

Wish I would have thought to say goodbye to more people and get more stuff at the farmers' market. I get so wrapped up in responding to customers and watching the clock until I can go home that I sometimes forget to be there now. I lingered at the end though. A couple of guys were doing capoeira  and playing berimbaus so I enjoyed that novelty that comes from empty spaces and being in a public park. I wanted to thank them but I was the last person on the block so I just went home.

My little start on a fundraising campaign (still unofficial) went well...I sold $173 of the Market logo bags and hats. I'm paying 50% to Market, something I put into place a few weeks ago. I ran my thoughts by our interim GM. I know we can't go full-on right now with so much to do for HM, but I can do my part and it will matter.

I've been selling logo bags for at least a decade and just keeping them the same price as the ones sold at the Info booth, just the flat bags. They started at $5 which was basically cost and during the 50th I put a rainbow blend of ink on them...the 50th logo didn't translate well to the bags but the ink's beauty kept them selling. I got the price up to $10 when the bag price went up a bit and that printing required a lot more attention, wasted ink, and time. They sold great at $10 but with the new design, it just wasn't enough for them to be the cheapest bag...I want to know people really want it out of all the products I sell, not just as the least expensive bag option they can find in a pinch.

I redesigned the logo last spring. I did my own version without a plan for it, just to give myself something to print I will enjoy. It's better than the 50th logo and appealing in a new way. I drew my tools in it, my squeegee and rulers and pens and stuff...an idea which I had long ago and just found a bit too hard to draw. I had planned to draw everyone's tools...including a ukelele and other things to represent craftsmanship. Never got that far. I like to draw flowers. But the basket of flowers and tools in rainbowey blends is quite pretty, and now with the addition of the full-size bags in black and dyed colors, as well as the new hand-colored hats, I have a pretty successful and attractive line of fundraising merch!

I put my small bags up to $15 with the rest of my small bags, although the Info booth still has theirs at $10. They've gone from a convenience to a fundraising device. I'm pleased with the results. Over the years since 2019 when we did a lot of logo products throughout the Market (well, maybe nine or ten) the idea has evolved. Not all the logo products sold that well. We all kept the money we made and just paid our 10% on it, and until the pandemic, that was a good arrangement. Market didn't need any extra money...we were generating a sufficient amount to do what we needed to do. Or so we thought anyway.

Frankly, the pandemic kicked a big hole in our sufficiency to a degree that we are not really aware of in all of its aspects. We were closed for 10 weeks, sold at 50% capacity for a season and a half, and have still not restored our composting, garbage-sorting and durable flatware programs, among other things. Our advertising budget was cut in half and is not restored yet. Our staffing losses were profound and except for a couple of site crew, we have completely new staff. It took awhile, but we have good, solid staffing now and are feeling like we are going in the right direction, and are more-or-less back on track. We still don't know quite where we are, having lost a lot of our tracking options during the transition. On my list to restore are the weekly census of member numbers, and all the other ways we tracked ourselves.. I have a fairly long list of what I want to restore...for one thing, I want to go back to volunteering fewer hours and working to replace myself. Of course I do that at the same time as making myself indispensable, because I'm just thorough and interested in having everything running well. There's a level of ownership that I'm going to have to let go of at some point, but I'll get there.

Almost doubling the size of the Holiday Market was a calculated risk and it's going to take another year to make it really work, but I do think it was the right thing to do. There aren't events like it any more, extended, consistent offerings indoors during the challenging weather of the late fall and early winter. We thrive in there...it's comfortable, safe, and warm. Attracting new members is the key. That means a lot of time getting them signed up, oriented, and into the basket of our community. We don't always do our best at making ourselves easy to understand or enter into. Myths persist. But we're worth the effort.

All of us in the basket is a metaphor from our beloved former GM, Beth Little. It's a beautiful way to encompass our attitude toward our members and mission. We want to have abundance for all of us, to keep us together, to keep us contained within our vessel as we traverse the world of retail and human interaction. I have loved trying to interpret it over the years. I have hated it. We've used it since 1981 I think. We don't change things that easily. The basket and a rainbow...that's kind of us. Shiny in the rain.

My idea for the fundraising campaign, if we agree to start one, is for other artists to interpret the basket themselves, in their style of creativity. We've got a lot of strong illustrators in the Market right now. It's an open metaphor that could allow for a lot of variation, and still be recognizable. A basket of baby animals? A basket of foods? A lot of people like using bones and artifacts from nature...I can see a gothic treatment, even a macabre one...or a basket of stars and planets. I've got plenty of ideas.

Not every logo treatment will sell, and I have mine right out front now and they're really the nicest items I sell. I've made literally thousands of dollars on them since 2019, especially in the last few weeks. People are quite thrilled to wear Saturday Market hats to show their support (and I guess coolness? Who knows?) I give away a fair number of bags to people who buy multiple items or just need a bag...it floors people to get a free canvas bag, even when they are obviously flawed, with spots on them or crooked prints. They are so appreciative. It turns out people really like showing their support for Saturday Market. 

So I am convinced we need a fundraising campaign, a web page and a donation button on our official page, and a clean, simple approach to showing us at our best in a way that can be easily supported for people who don't live here, who have come once and long to return, for people who just want to see us continue to operate, grow and improve, and for ourselves as well. We love to support Saturday Market. Many of us would support it more if it were easier, and everyone likes to show their support or get something in return. So I made t-shirts too, despite my efforts to get farther away from retailing t-shirts. There's a wide variety as I had a lot of random shirts left over from the fundraising campaign where I learned how to do this.

James Bateman and Crystalyn Frank get the credit for showing me how it is done. James is a genius designer who has been working for various orgs including OCF for decades. He knows his way around a website and has a great sense of what will sell, and how to sell it. Crystalyn gets the credit for making it all possible. One of her responses to the pandemic and drastic loss of income for OCF was to get this campaign mounted and functioning for the two years the event could not be held. She brought the right people together and made it an earth-shaking Fair in the Clouds effort that was sadly thrown out with the bathwater, but it stands as an accomplishment that all of us who worked on it know intimately. It was ground-breaking and highly successful. I got the chance to step up and design and print many of the things we sold in 2021 and felt like it was probably one of my greatest artistic achievements in a 50-plus year creative career. I felt so very good about it.

Because apparently, I like making money from my art, but I like it twice as much when it benefits the whole community. I love seeing those Fair in the Clouds shirts on people and I love it every time I sell one of these Saturday Market basket hats or bags. It's so sweet to interact with the lovely people who are spreading my joy around the world. It fits so well with how I see myself as I enter legacy territory and begin to leave worker-bee territory. I'm not going to live forever (neither are you, surprise...) and I want to be pleasantly remembered. Not as that awkward person who doesn't know how to ask for permission or make things happen in human relations. Not as that messy-house person who went to drive my little-used car this week and thought the temp gauge was showing an empty gas tank...oh well, I have a full tank now. Not as that earnest biker who is lucky when I'm not run over on my slow way home.

I know I can't control how I leave this world or how I am remembered. I try to do good when I can, not to please any deity but so I can counter those moments when I just hate myself and everything about my life. They don't come that often but they do go down to the bottom of my soul as I bring up all the things I've stuffed down in a long and awkward life. Self-hatred is the biggest thing in many of our lives, many of our struggles. We hold ourselves to high standards. For me, it is rare that I actually feel fantastic about anything, much less about anything I have done or said.

But when I was printing the aqua bags this week they were so beautiful to me, I went and got every aqua shirt in my piles and printed them up. The warm pink and yellow and peach inks just thrilled me. I have to mark these moments to remind myself that I have them, since so many of my work moments are just kind of resentful and bored, after screenprinting for so many decades. I ruin a hat and toss it aside in disgust. I procrastinate even going out into the shop and despair at how to extricate myself from my stuff and my properties at some future point. That archive project just defeats me every time I think about it. I don't want anyone else to write the book about Saturday Market, but maybe I don't really want to be the person who writes it. I'm chewing on that.

But when it comes to filling the basket for the Saturday Market community, I tuck my self-hatred in behind it for a minute and put in some lovely, graceful things that I am proud of. I hope you all enjoy them.

And once again, I am not really going to ask for permission. It's launched. It's no secret. You are welcome to climb into the basket with me, and join in the joy of giving. Let me know if you have a problem with it. We can work that out.

It counters the way we are all engaging in the holiday consumerism that is on our plates big time at Holiday Market. Let's buy ourselves our durables program back with our efforts. Let's buy ourselves a DEI training and a program to increase our inclusiveness. Let's grow together and leave something meaningful behind. It's roomy in this basket! Come on in.

Finding that Equity Lens

 Foggy this morning so I guess I won't get out there and weed right away. I do plan to spend the day outside and let my thoughts and feelings sort themselves out in silence. 

Met my neighbor's new dog last night and realize I am the only house on this side of the block without a dog. I think there are now 9 in only 5 households. No wonder all the squirrels live in my yard. I think I'm the only one feeding birds now too, so I get a lot of great birds, but also all the cats. At least one of them is belled. As much as I would like to make friends with the cats, I have to chase them off. There are some baby squirrels right now. Seems late and they're scurrying to gather leaves and make nests everywhere. They're cute...but they can't all live with me.

Yesterday at the Park Blocks we had many many Cedar Waxwings. Although they are beautiful to see, they love eating laurel berries and the booths across from me, under a cedar tree, were just covered with purple fragments. One canopy was probably destroyed by them and will never be white again...but what can you do? I wish I would have thought to offer a cloth to throw over it, which might have helped a little. You don't expect to have to bring a cover for your cover. I was out of the fall line just barely, but it was still a hard day, even with bright birds to admire/resent.

There were also lots of people and some were dressed up. It made for some fun. I always am sorry I didn't go to more trouble. I was the apocalyptic vision of my future as a crafter. It says "HOW may I help you?" on the back because obviously if you are at Walmart, you need help. And we're gonna force it on you.

We all need help. I've been obsessing over my Board Educational Minute on Equity and of course I have an hour's worth of things to say at least. I'm consulting the hive mind on FB about it and actually it's helpful. It's about planting a seed so the next time I mention the word in the context of a policy, people will know what I am talking about, or will do some research of their own on how the organization is dealing with our equity issues.

I'm hopeful that we can get to it to a degree. We've been putting out fires for a year and a half so we haven't had the luxury of much reflection time, but several of the things that happened touched on DEI issues. We have them...sexism, racism, ableism, otherism, cultural appropriation, intolerance, microaggressions, pretty much all the things on the pyramid of racism and tenets of white supremacy graphics, but we don't address any of them directly as a rule so I am just assuming some or most of us are not aware of them. We've been lucky as far as I know to not have a lot of overt ism situations, but for sure they come up.

It's well established that hippie origins like those of the Market bring along white supremacy culture in structure and policies. Because at least one of our founders was not a hippie, and in fact escaped Nazi Germany, we built in a bit of awareness of equality, but a lot has changed in 53 years and we have not done any deep looks into what our assumptions lead us to. I know we tend to listen to the people at the table, who are essentially a self-selected group of people who have time to volunteer, and while there is an age range, that may or may not help. Younger people who grew up with more awareness of multiple cultures and didn't necessarily have hippie roots might know a lot more than I think they do, but I haven't seen a lot of my hard-core feminism operating in recent times. I know I am not middle-of-the-road in that aspect. I have to struggle to allow men some slack and while there are a couple of men I admire in my circles, it's never a given. I want to get myself somewhere in a genderless thought space where I never think in binary terms, as that might help my perspective. I mean, "not all women" either. 

The hive mind is reminding me that it could be possible to bypass all the ways I want to task my org with the faults I have observed and imagine what progress might look like. Not a self-congratulatory minute saying what we're doing right, but some way to convey what an equitable process would look like, so we can make a bit of an immediate shift. Because I know we don't have any funds for a professional training, as much as it would be useful, and we don't have time for any difficult conversations unless I form a focus group or something, which would likely attract more people who want to do the work, rather than those who need to do it. But if they ask me to do that, I probably will, as typically committees are the way we have the type of protracted discussions we need on all the many subjects. 

I'm going to have to make every word count. I figure I will ask for something easy to remember, which is to use an "equity lens" when we make policy. We can try that right away and in the process, figure out what that feels like. Obviously if I start with anything dramatic like saying I am a racist raised in a white supremacy culture they will likely fall easily into degrees of denial or acknowledgement, and that could actually allow a few others to feel that we are the same page in our process, but we need to work on a lot more issues than racism. So I think I will make an attempt to talk about how we all use privilege, without thinking about it. 

As individual member businesses, we are set up to think mostly about how our needs must be met, as we can easily opt out if that isn't happening. The guy next to me packed up an hour early yesterday and I worked hard on what to say about it. I wasn't able to talk to him directly, but I know I was cold when he tried to say goodbye. Fortunately the person he was sharing with stayed, so after he left I thanked her for staying and said a little about how it is our group agreement to stay open, for each other. She already agreed with me. I stopped myself from the full lecture. Increasingly I feel that it is not my job to police the other members, and it is detrimental if I do it. I'm already set up to be the cranky old lady who upholds tradition and uses an abundance of ownership to impose my will on everyone else. I'm not going to be that lady if I can help it. I mean, I FEEL ownership, but that is my privilege speaking there, as I benefit from my participation in many ways and need to do the work of limiting that and working for equity, myself!

So, a work in progress for sure, and I hope to put my editing skills to work to create a dynamic and memorable few minutes that will be useful to everyone in the zoom room. I have a couple of days. I will let my much-appreciated right brain ruminate on this while I get outside and do some weeding, because yay, the sun came out! But do let me know if you have something to add to my quest of the day. I signed up for this minute over a year ago and sure don't want to waste it. This old world has got to change.

I don't like Autumn, but this is a good one

 A lot has changed in the past two weeks. I can sleep again, and my stress level has gone down almost to "can enjoy life" again. Not all the way...it's just not a safe world and there are still plenty of challenges.

I watched the Jan 6 show and noticed my increasing anxiety and wish to distance, but I'm glad I stuck it out for the powerful ending. The voice vote to subpeona actually brought some emotion to my numbed soul, seeing those studious and determined people stand together to do what they know is not only right but will put them in personal danger. Obviously they all put their careers on the line long ago but the way human life is disregarded now for ideology has to be scary for everyone who is trying to work for justice. Every day, every minute.

We made the needed personnel change for my org and it was much less painful than expected, though for me the pain was in watching the train wreck and knowing my voice was not one that could be prominent. I didn't have to hold back with the team members I was working with, and I am grateful for their respect and willingness to listen, and I hope they felt gratified that I was such a good team player and was able to put aside so many things to just get on board for the best possible course of action. But I definitely had to take about a week of retreat to get back to work for the org. 

It was disheartening to even add things up in my journal in the account of how much I paid for the last two years. I remember sitting on my deck for an entire day when the train first went off the rails, processing my anger and disbelief at the position I had gotten myself into. I do not tolerate being deceived. I am way too trusting. So to go from backing someone as wholeheartedly as I could to a whole different course of action was tough, but I navigated it as well as I could. I thought I was riding a risky line but staying on the side of being honest myself, but was still surprised at the outcomes. Many times.

And I've been unpleasantly surprised over and over and had to re-evaluate myself and everyone else countless times as we weathered the blows of the injustice of liars and bullies. Since so much of it was confidential personnel stuff I wasn't able to talk about it with anyone in depth. I needed a highly paid professional and instead leaned on a few key people and I feel it was their loss. I got to process it, but what they learned didn't help them and made a few things worse despite my best intentions.

But it was a lot of water under a fragile bridge and it almost seems like we got that bridge reinforced now so it will serve for at least a few months before we have to get out our tools again. I still need therapy. I can maintain, but quality of life is thin. Mostly food is my go-to, and being in the garden, but I am still triggering my food allergies, since I love all the things I can't really tolerate, and my back issues are preventing me from doing all of the work I want to do. And I'm still wearing a mask every time I am out in public and often even with small groups of people. Just don't feel safe.

The lifting of doing the Market day and the standing up the whole time are getting to be too much. I hate to admit it. I dread the first rainy day as I might find out I can no longer deal with the pop-up and weights. I am not likely to be one of those who gets other people to do my work, as it just isn't my way. So maybe I skip. We only have three markets left, so maybe I get lucky and the drought holds on the weekends. Holiday Market is probably manageable although there is still plenty of lifting and hard work. And I have a big pile of denial about any longterm physical limits. Add it to my denial list. It's pretty long.

I still have people sending me bad energy when I speak out and maybe I am getting stronger about it. I can be strong on the outside while I work on it. I know how to block people now so at least they can't access me and make me respond on social media. Most bullies are too cowardly to do much in person, fortunately. One in particular has a way of going to others with all his innocence and then they try to caution me...but enabling bullies is bullying and I am not tolerant of that either. So probably I appear unreasonable about a few things but I know what is true and what is not. And no one gets to tell me not to tell the truth.

When I am courageous enough to tell it. My social media interactions have diminished to almost none. Since I don't post this on FB I get about 3 readers...that's okay I guess. I am doing to to keep writing and to remind myself how to construct logical essay structures and so that I don't forget that I am a writer with big projects to do. Someday. When things get stable for more than a couple of weeks at a time. In the winter. Next summer.

Ha, next summer won't be happening. I need a new roof, and I have the opportunity to do some solar on it, but I know I can't do much of it myself, if any. So every dollar I can put away will be important. So I'm mad about one of my selling days getting discarded by other people who didn't need it. If the weather is good I might try to sell with the farmers, if they let us. If it isn't I will enjoy a day off I suppose, reluctantly. I'm not mad at any individual who made that decision for the org, just mad that my arguments didn't hold more weight. I argued for the community gathering, for the people who don't sell at HM who also lost their last selling day, and for the heritage of Rain or Shine and honoring our commitments. We show up. We work hard.

I've been reflecting that hard work is really my core value. I even work hard to finish my library books and get them back on time. I don't know how my life works if I can't work hard. That makes it a bit of a self-destructive addiction on the scale of things, and a protestant white supremacy cultural value. if I am not a hard worker, how will my value be measured? 

I know my value as a seasoned and experienced membership participant is diminished and won't last. They say they respect my opinions but not in the way that they might defer to them. I didn't say "I told you so," once about the botched decisions that I proved to be right about. I know how to be graceful and to move forward. I don't expect apologies, and they won't be forthcoming. Instead I looked at my behaviors and the ways I expressed my positions and I figured out ways to be better next time. I worked on myself to be more palatable. I am such a trained 1950s woman. I will always be a team player and a cheerleader and such an earnest learner. I hope that is seen about me when I join the ranks of the dismissed and ditzy. I'll likely never stop trying to work hard for what I see needs to be done. 

It's likely to always be exhausting and only momentarily rewarding. Because I stood firm, we got ourselves out of trouble. There was a price. We have paid it. Now we figure out how to mitigate our losses and rebuild. I have no choice but to pick up my tools again. 

Maybe I can learn to pick up fewer at a time and not hurt myself in the process. Maybe if I can't learn to not work hard I can learn to moderate when and how. What if I let go of all the parts that make me feel bad? Well, it's probably like the approach of winter. Me feeling bad about it doesn't change the march of time. Maybe I learn to use winter more effectively to meet my goals. Which are...work hard, and enjoy life. Going outside now. Be well.

Mostly Market Stuff

 Although I write posts in my mind all the time, it is only on Sunday mornings that I feel like I have the time to put those thoughts down in essay form. I write in my journal every day, but there is still so much on  my mind that I have developed sleeping problems for only the second time in my life. I must have had them as an adolescent, because I vividly remember the techniques my mom gave me of counting (not that useful when your perseverating overwhelms your mathing) and constructing a dream and then drifting into it. Basically think lovely thoughts...so maybe it was Tinkerbell's advice. I don't do that well with the dream construction when my real-life dreams are being trampled.

This is my only day off and I need a lot more. It's gorgeous and there's lots of yardwork, and my foot doesn't feel as bad today since I resorted to icing it after Market. I literally can not use it on Saturday nights and that is a bad feeling. Icing it makes me think maybe it is mostly arthritis after all. It always feels better when I use it a bit but I am so exhausted after I sit down at 7:00 pm that I should probably just take a bath and go to bed then. Kitty is always mad at me though so I have to do a lot of cudddling and all that to make up for being gone so long. I have learned that making sure her food dish is full has a big effect on her insecurity issues though. And Sunday mornings my foot usually still hurts.

It was a great fall Market, hot like summer, and I cannot have the lack of grace to complain, as I am so fulfilled by my customers there...even had a couple of them giving my screenprinting a close examination and understanding the skills shown...had some interesting conversations with other members too about being master crafters and how that helps us all when we show our work. I love new members and all the talents and energy they bring but we need that mix of both. 

There are some member issues that are overwhelming me and I have a lot to say about them. It's not going to fit into the Board meeting but in working on my Equity presentation (I get a couple of minutes so it will be just a tiny dip into it, mostly to underscore the need for us to get some professional training to guide us through some long-overdue discussions about our organization) I plan to try to define the difference between the equality we profess and the lack of equity we actually practice. It's definitely time to get to work on it. So I will quickly pivot from theoretical Equity to member equity and the few really obvious places where we need to address it.

For a short version, that is fees: people who earn at the low end pay way more of an overall percentage of earnings than the more successful earners. Because we have a terrible track record of doing the calculations at the end of the day for the 10%, we have been reluctant to raise that part to 15% but we may need to go to 20%. We always end up raising the space fee (currently $15) and that just makes the regressive aspect worse. There are some other ideas and if we have the right leadership in the winter when we make this decision, we can design in some more equitable modifications. Like maybe the percentage doesn't kick in until you earn a certain amount...$200 or something. Or we appeal to people's sense of fairness and add some kind of tax on the high earners. Just one issue.

For such a loving organization we don't do that well on fairness. There are people who park in the nearby spaces all day so they can access their cars for loading out, completely disregarding that dozens of customers could have used those spaces (some unmetered) to spend money on all of us, and that parking is a real issue that is going to get worse. There are a lot of ways each one of us breaks the rules, which are designed for a pretty good level of fairness and equality, if not equity, but only work when they are followed. Many people (and I include myself) have a way of picking and choosing the rules we will strictly follow. Many do try to follow them all, at least in the intention of them.

We have an extremely obvious condition of privilege in our reserve system. Currently you only have to sell in your reserved space 12 times out of 33 to keep it. (It does cost $150, about $5 per market.) That is only about a third of the times we are open, so not that huge of a commitment to the Market. Some folks got up a (self-righteous imo) petition to change it to only 9 times attending, so more like about one fourth of the times we are open. ( Food booths have to come 27 times, or pay a fine.) So they want to have even less commitment to Market's needs, and retain their privilege to the reserve space. It goes without saying that those are the best spaces. In fact almost all of the spaces are reserved, and there isn't a lot of turnover except for during the pandemic. Not that many people retire. 

The argument is that anyone can sell in those spaces when the reserve folks are not there, but you have to wait in point order to get them, and if you have low points it can be 9:30 when you get the space, so you get about 20 minutes to set up before opening. As a reserve member I can get there as early as I want, which is currently about 7:30, giving me time to do my elaborate set-up that works so well for me. I can do a lot with my displays, sell to the early customers who don't know we open at 10, and in general, I benefit greatly from the fantastic space I worked to get. I got lucky that the person who had it retired and I had the points to get it. New members rarely get a chance at the best spaces. But we need to open up that opportunity because we lose members who know what success feels like, and a 20-minute set-up and an out-of-traffic space is not going to get them there in a satisfying way. We need to design more turnover into our reserve system, not less. Our policies favor the privileged. See it, say it, change it. Not for your benefit, but for the benefit of others.

There's more of course. There's a letter saying we are in some kind of "new era"when the experienced people, who have been willing to chair committees and do the heavy lifting, need to be forced to step aside through term limits. It's targeted at the 5 or 6 of us who are in those positions, all of which come up for election every January and for which any person can be nominated and elected. It's a solution in search of the problem to match it, and the letter basically said "this is going to hurt some feelings but I am going to go ahead and try to make it happen anyway." It's one of the more distressing things on my list of very distressing trends in our community. I have to assume I am one of the people targeted. 

Participatory decision-making is a craft. It takes years to learn to do it well and a serious mix of skills and qualities to use it and make sure others do as well. Our committee chairs are generally good at it. Pushing them out will destroy our committee system, as conveniently, with term limits, once the new people push out the experienced ones, term limits will push them out too, and then we will really face the actual problem we have now, which is simply we need more volunteers who are dedicated and capable and willing of doing the heavy lifting. Or we can also work at making those lifts less daunting. Do more mentoring and work-sharing and bringing people in who can commit. But longer commitments will still be required. To sustain our community we need to carry forward all that we have learned, and have the wisdom and courage to continue using it, at least the parts that work. 

We have a pretty large body of community-held experience, wisdom, and lessons learned through trial and error. Plenty of error, lots of trials. We regularly re-invent policies if no one knows what is already in place. We've done well at documenting our policies, but the work that we did to get there is in our memories, those of us who did that work. Pushing us from participating is just not going to help our organization. We've already seen three of the six people resign, and the rest of us are on the verge of it. The new era of doing things like the downtown developments, the Holiday Market, the Budget, the Standards deliberations, without us, scares me. I dispute the necessity or wisdom of the whole effort. I don't know of any volunteer who has stepped up and been discouraged, unless they came in with an unworkable agenda and tried to impose it on what was already happening. We are open to change and willing to hear all informed and sensible arguments for improvement. We can work with any problematic individuals on the actual problems without throwing them out, dismissing their vast contributions with a mean gesture veiled in bullshit language. The last person who talked about the New Era was George Bush the Elder, and you saw how well that went.

I don't know when service became power-seeking. It isn't about power for me. It's about the duties of care and loyalty for the organization I invest my time and energy in. It's about real equity and fairness for me, and improvement, and staying in the maelstrom of the current times when attitudes and how we treat each other, and communicate about it, must evolve, and are evolving. I will never subscribe to the myth that old is bad and young or new is good. It's doublespeak. Good is good. The common good is what we should strive for. Even it if is not our good, specifically. We serve the common good.

I pay that extra tax, for being successful, by giving my time and money and support and love and sleepless nights, to my organization in gratitude for the opportunities I am given. I feel I have created a lovely balance and can continue for the rest of my life. Pushing me out is not something I will just submit to quietly. Term limit me off Downtown Developments and you have no task force to liaison between members, staff and the city. Push me out as Secretary, that's easy. Just elect someone else in January. You know I will train and mentor them and continue to support them as I just move into the other free things I do for Market, like the archiving. The ballots are secret, so I won't even know if you vote for me or the new person. Just step up and use the process we have in place and not this passive-aggressive framing of "this is going to hurt but it will be the best thing for you." Fuck that. 

And don't you dare say this is not about me. This is about my teams, the ones we have been depending on all this time. Without these leaders we would not have gotten through the pandemic or all the subsequent struggles, and those of the past decades which were no less stressful. Add up the number of sleepless nights for your leaders and weigh them against your own. How much sleep are you willing to give to your organization that sustains and nurtures you? Maybe that is the measure we use to evaluate dedication. How much has it hurt? How many have you hurt? What's your balance?

How much do we actually come from selflessness to support the common good? Is that the Golden Ruler of evaluation? What will we give? How will our gifts be valued? Let's do better.

Make Time to Be Vulnerable

 The reason I took a break from this writing was that the pandemic and all that was happening at the time made me just too vulnerable. I was being bullied, I was afraid of dying from getting Covid, and all of my routines and work devolved into many hours and days of reading books on the deck. I observed constantly and wrote in my journal and wrote posts in my mind, but was mostly just afraid to speak. 

My organizations were dying, not able to have our events and not able to meet in person. It was still during the previous administration, so politics were still traumatizing, worse even. The elderly and disabled were being sacrificed and there was so much suffering. I was guilty of being happy to be able to stay home alone and read. It was a joyous vacation made possible by unbelievable suffering by others. So my words were not feeling useful. I ate them with the sourdough and vegan ice cream.

I noticed while trying to find my blog today that not only is there a drag queen using the name, but it's a pretty religious term that of course I have ignored. What I mean by divine tension is an illustration by Nancy Bright I treasure of a woman balancing on a thread of spider silk...ready to plummet off for telling the truth as she sees it. Balanced, though. Fearless of the consequences, as her dress shreds and falls away. Kind of me...but kind of not. My aspiration.

I'm listening to a podcast, not even able to finish listening before being driven to speak. You can hear it too: https://anchor.fm/ayisha-elliott/episodes/How-Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion-DIED-e1ningb?fbclid=IwAR2sdJvaG9b1dTB5fTVHgyL5GMjdPhCWCA0sutN313QATNkGhFPB_qsgE_k

I'm not posting it on FB, where things are too toxic still. People there, even my own friends, don't deserve my help in finding these truths. People, even my own friends, need to step up and do their own work. I have a lot to do on my list. But I am glad I arranged my day around this group conversation by people I have so much love and respect for. They got bullied far more than I did, and they can still laugh. They drew their boundaries and then kept going. They're willing to tell the truth. And so must I be. So since this was my main way to do that, I'll come back. We'll see how it goes.

Market has become no fun for me in the last year, for a lot of reasons, but yesterday the Jesus parade of signs and yellers with megaphones camped out on my corner and the other corners of our intersection and it made an unbearable day so much worse. It was raining ash yesterday. It wasn't really smart to be there, but I had just fought at a meeting for us to honor our commitment to be open, for the community as well as for ourselves and each other, in a general way, and now here was a specific way for me to again, show up. So I had to pack my ice water and go. I wore my mask as I have continued to do for so many markets now (all of them since June 2000.) And when the righteous people yelled I did two things, besides trying to ignore them: I put up my performative sign that says "End white supremacy culture" right on the front of my booth, because obviously that kind of X-tianity is WSC, even though I have not been putting up my performative sign, because it's performative. The second thing I did was I went over to the woman who plays mandolin with all of her heart and soul and put $20 in her case (even though I had already tipped her because she is my favorite busker and I am into keeping her alive and well) and thanked her for stepping up and taking her space as she did right as they were occupying our corner. She played and sang True Colors and she kept playing and singing and then another two musicians did the same. And I tipped them as well. Performatively and for real.

So listening to this podcast, which was people I know who were speaking truth so hard, I felt ashamed, of my complicity in hiding out in the face of shocking atrocity, and for keeping comfortable in a time when all of our lives are on the line. I can hardly call myself an activist anymore...I get too triggered to do public activism. I do quiet stuff. I make plans of things I could be doing. I try to spend some of my money on things other people are doing. I try to fight inside these orgs to help us be upright and do the right things. I lose heart mostly every morning and build it back in my journal.

I didn't go to Fair this year, mostly for safety because I would for sure have gotten Covid, but also because I was ashamed of it. It should not have been held. I heard the spin and obfuscation and I did some of my jobs, and supported other crafters, but I blew off that income and burnt some bridges. I'm glad I did. I truly do not know at this time if I will go back. My illusions were never very strong about the bullshit family stuff and all that so-called magic, as I have seen pretty much all of it over the years and I know who the good people are and who they are not. I have seen through all of the curtains. These last years have been really toxic though, since the bullies were empowered.

We have had some bullying at the Market, and I have fought it in my position as an officer, and mostly we have been able to disarm the bullies by either getting them to resign their positions or by the good luck of them going elsewhere with their bad habits. Some are still in place, and their habits have been adopted by others, but I can still fight it fairly effectively there. I get to guide the Board, I can speak to the offenders with a bit of positional power, and I can just endure some of it until it dissipates, because I know I have strong ethics and integrity and I work from my values and rarely use that type of tactics or behaviors to get things to go in what I believe is an ethical and coherent direction. I make mistakes, but I do not think I was ever wrong in working to get rid of the bullies. I stood strong in the group and led from within. It's always hard, and I shed a lot of tears and process a lot of anger, but I know what is right and what is not. And I am very clear on what is bullying and how to fight it. Not that I succeed in every case, because some people just learn to keep it out of my sight. Bullies tend to have skills in brainwashing followers.

But Fair is another thing altogether. The number of bullies who are now in power seems unassailable. Out of the people who are running for the Board, I can support three of them: Lucy Kingsley, Ann Rogers, and Katy Parker. All of them talk about service, which is maybe number one on my list of qualifications. There are two men I don't know, whom I might take a chance on, maybe after more research. I always learn a lot from their physical presence on the forum recordings. But all the rest of the candidates are known bullies or in support of known bullies. I am sorry to have to say that. None of them will make a positive contribution to the organization, in my view. That's a lot of people to reject. It doesn't give me a lot of hope. They don't admit to that in their statements, but for me and my bullshit filter, talking about the family, the magic, the love and the party are bullshit gaslighting. Those things are toxic. 

The org has alienated my son's generation to the extent that maybe none of them will ever go back. My generation is reaching the end of our abilities to make and sell there. Lots of the people in between have now seen the worst, and are no longer willing to overwork and bully themselves for an ideal that has been shown to be cardboard. Thin cardboard, very prettily painted. It got blown down in the pandemic and not many people I know want to prop it back up. 

The white supremacy culture lives there in the worst ways. Now you can't even talk about it. There's way more denial that willingness to work. With the recorded meetings that can be viewed by bullying Board members, my committee has not had a productive conversation about cultural appropriation, something our committee has to initiate, without the benefit of any diversity professionals since they won't be coming back to help. Some still care, but why attempt it? Even if I hire them myself, which I have been tempted to do, no action will come of it as any guideline we attempt to write will not make it past the Board. Unless maybe some of the bullies are gone. Not that they have to be Board members, since the process is now about who can tarnish the hardest, and who can drive the false narratives. 

Market is not off the hook in diversity issues. I was able to make it part of the performance, along with trying to find someone multilingual to address some cultural accessibility, but it wasn't really part of any end results. I volunteered to speak about equity to the Board, but when I tried to speak about so many tiny parts of that in the past, it was just so obvious that most people at the table had not had time to do any self-education on the issues, that I know my best bet is to stick to things that are relatable, like our internal member equity issues like who gets favored in our fee structure and who gets the benefits of our wonky map with it's bonus spaces and things like shade. We're going to have a fee increase this winter, and once again I will try to explain what regressive structure means and options to make sure the successful pay more and the less successful pay less. I've done this the last two or three times to no result. "Everyone has to pay their dues," "We've all had to learn how to build our businesses," and so on. Bootstrap stuff. We profess equality as one of our tenets but equity? It's going to be my job to just start that conversation. In 2022. I figure I can talk about shoes. Everyone gets a pair of shoes. Doesn't it work better if everyone gets the pair of shoes that fits them? Or like, one shoe and one wheel? We all know how much of that I can get done in the Board Educational Minute. But I will sure try. I will absolutely use the minute to suggest that when we can figure out if we have any money or not, we put some aside for an introductory training. Because we are going to have to start at the very beginning. Dough, ray, me me me. 

I'm not really going to vent about the things that are really bothering me today. This is already too long and I've done my morning processing to get myself to the position I do every day, to a place of patience and tolerance and giving things a chance to get better so I won't have to let my rage and deep disappointment out to undermine my message. I've begun to believe it is idealistic to hold people to high ethical and relational standards. Maybe I just start putting books on the table for people to read and let some of it go. Read Ibram X. Kendi, damnit. Read Mediocre, or anything by Ijeoma Oluo. All of hers. Read one book. Read one article. What have you been doing all through the pandemic? Watching Netflix? Right, I knew that. 

Watch Henry Louis Gates then. Listen to Michelle Obama. Surely you have time for her. Somebody. Even Ellen is better than no one. 

I'm being mean I guess. Probably a lot of my readers have read these writers, probably one or two of my Board members have as well. We just haven't talked about it yet. Maybe when we get finished putting out the fires started by the liars and bullies who were willing to take my orgs to the ground we can talk about books and ideas. Maybe the fires will get put out. But at my house, at my booth, the sun is still a lovely but deadly shade of hot fuschia pink. And I'm still standing in the ash fall, looking around to see if I have any friends in there with me. If so, thank you, and some day we'll kiss and hug.

By the way, one of the most beautiful moments I saw yesterday, which hardly anyone else saw, was a couple of young women who stood behind the X-tians with their fetus signs and bullhorn, and kissed. Just a simple, regular kiss like they give each other every day. That's the moment my heart filled up and my eyes stopped burning. I took a drink of water, and there was still some ice.