I'm well aware that people who don't like me read this, and I won't speculate about their motives, but I hope they find it boring. I write this for me, to work out the coherency of my thoughts, articulate my observations, record what I experience. I guess I hope people who love me read it, and I know some of them do, but lately my readership has increased and I think I know why.
It's naive to think I won't be targeted in the punishment era, whether for my politics, what I've earned, what I've been lucky enough to acquire, what I've taken joy from. Punishing kinds of people need their targets, and the more naive the better. I have for a long time cultivated building trust, trying to practice peace, trying to limit fear and enlarge the safety and functionality I will need for these next years as I age faster than I am ready to handle.
Yesterday was one of those unlikely, kind of perfect days I love at the market. It was too hot, so I put up 3 umbrellas for me and my neighbors, and with the help of the fountain breezes, made it pretty tolerable in our sunny location. We get shade around 2:30, but we'd be fried by then if we didn't work on a system. We were bored at times with the low traffic flow, but the morning was packed with the kind of relaxed, meaningful encounters it is always nice to have time to fully enjoy.
A friend with probably terminal cancer came by to humble me with his learned wisdom and left me with intense dreams last night and a deeper understanding of what the hell I am doing on this spot on the planet. I did not recognize him, to my dismay, as he was so changed in appearance. We weren't close friends, just the type of market friends who share a mutual enjoyment of each other and don't need to protect ourselves. One useful thing he told me was the things he learned from 30 years of sobriety are also super helpful in enduring the ravages of the ungraceful ends some of us will experience. His body is suffering but he has that inner glow of certainty that whatever happens, he has the skills and tools to work with it. I felt it a gift that he shared that tool kit with me.
I tried to keep working and smiling and live up to his expectation that I could also handle what he is going through, and what will happen to man of us, and me in some form or other. I mean, I have health challenges. Like him, I will probably not want to talk about them with everyone. I prefer handling my grief in private, so you might see me limp but you probably won't know why. You might watch me simplify, but you won't know my motives. I might ask for something, but hopefully I won't overshare.
I asked for the Thursday HM load in, not for extra help but just for extra time. I am a person who enjoys doing my own work, and like many artisans, I would not want someone else unloading my stuff, undoing my organization and process, and "helping me." I refused it when I broke my wrist and when I can't do market, I might not say goodbye. It's my 50th year, but I don't want a damn medal. I just want to be able to make my own choices and have my efforts respected. That seems logical to me but we are in the punishment era.
There's a false narrative that change is necessary and the founding generation is holding that back, but speaking for myself, it is not change we want to hold back. We just want to retain the important values we have brought forward, for good reasons. We want to be inclusive, transparent, collaborative, open, affirming, empowering and of course, solvent. We want the market to endure long past our own presence there, to continue to serve the wonderful artisan life we have made possible here in Eugene by our hard work and many years of dedicated service to our collective needs and ambitions. We want younger people to feel welcomed to step up, to keep building, to keep enjoying the deep satisfaction of an art-driven, independent life working with like-minded contemporaries. We appreciate each other.
Many of us are not perfect humans and we have always been happy to work around our flaws or mistakes or trespasses, learn to get past them, which can take years, and keep selling next to each other in grace and abundance. We feel pettiness sometimes, we acknowledge our painful encounters and parts, and we still show up and do our best. It's the deep stuff of life to be in a community that chooses each other in this way that is suffused with humility. I may not agree with you, but I support your right to membership in this precious and amazing organization we are trying to shepherd through the years.
We can see and appreciate authenticity and honesty, goodwill and an open heart. That's what keeps people coming back to see us, to work with us, to be us. We can also see duplicity, manipulation, selfishness and people who try to take advantage of us. We have our subtle ways of dealing with those things, generally quietly. We sometimes put people on hold in a way, while we get over our problems and come around to a compassionate place again. We've kept people in place despite some pretty large mistakes, welcomed them back when they have left in anger or despair, learned to forgive them or just stay out of their way until things are okay or good again. I'm in the process of trying to forgive someone who bullied me for ten years. She keeps asking for forgiveness by acting like it never happened, but my memories are too strong for that, so I'm just trying to stay in the present and give her the chance to be kind, now.
It's not easy to do this, so we need people with skills in leadership so we don't give in to the easier choices of complete rejection, banishment, egregious punishments meant to break people. Much of the training we have done to keep people in has been to refer to history to see how we worked things out before, to see what we learned when we made the mistakes of banishment, or pushing people until they break. We've waited for a lot of people to figure it out and find other places they fit better. It's more gentle, and fits better with our status as independent businesses to have that membership in our community be up to the member. When it stops working for you, you can leave. It's not the choice of one member to remove another member. Just not built in to the membership system, on purpose.
Which is part of why the punishment era feels so strange. I noticed some subtle changes in the rules in the HM publications, tighter penalties for whatever infractions or creative solutions people come up with to get their needs met. I've seen an intentional build-up of ways to give people in power more power to just eliminate the "problem people" and when that power is in policy revisions, it is often not noticed until it is used against members. The lists of evidence I have seen have convinced me that even being a pretty strict rule-follower will not protect me when it is my turn to be punished.
It's coming. Taking away my ability to keep the digital archive did not come as a personal communication to me...and my appeals for it to be restored have not been responded to by any person. It was just taken, after 16 years of the investment of my time and efforts, including the vast amounts of time I have spent searching it to answer research questions from many people. You would think that some of those people who got the benefit of my research time would value that enough to communicate with me, but so far, crickets. While it didn't seem aimed at me, it hurt me, and continues to hurt me everytime someone asks me to do research. Yesterday I was blithely asked to document one of our cultural nuances and even write a newsletter article about it. It took me all day to process that and I'm still not sure what to do. Obviously to me no newsletter submissions from me will be welcomed, since my direct requests get no response, and I've been misrepresented and even bullied by people who are in charge of newsletter content. That wouldn't be apparent to everyone who asks for research time. I generally like to be asked, and generally enjoy the process and the results. Obviously I enjoy writing and have written many archival articles about various subjects, and would like to continue to provide that rich cultural and organizational resource.
But when things hurt I tend to want to make it stop. I'd like to not think about it. I don't want to spread my hurt feelings to the people who ask me, who aren't aware it hurts. I do hope that people who are taking the actions of the punishment era will notice the hurt they are creating, and do something about it. Find that compassion. See that bigger picture. Think about those values.
I've stood there for fifty years adding my joy and my spirit to the marketplace, freely sharing it as much as I can. I don't want to understand a power structure that wants to destroy joy and spirit. I don't want to have to endure an era where I have to be watching over my shoulder for something to hurt me, as I have been enduring for the last two years. I'm in this community by choice, and I've more than paid my share of its dues. I'm hanging onto that joy that I was reminded of yesterday in that oppressive heat and chaotic creativity. We're bigger than we can see, more powerful than we can know. Even me.