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.
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.
