With the Farmers

 It was so interesting selling with the farmers and talking with them about our relationship. First, I had another superb selling day, as many people from the community, people here for the Ducks game, and farmers themselves shopped my hats and tote bags. Many of them discovered me for the first time, and everyone was full of thoughtful compliments and appreciation. The absolutely stellar weather didn't hurt. (Except I never knew what a glare that building creates on a sunny day! Good thing I had a hat.)

Looking over at the Park Blocks, just across from where I have stood for thousands of market days, I saw it as a well-loved park and not as "my" home, broadening out my view. A person was set up on the East Block, with an array of things, and a flute he kept noodling on for attention or from boredom, not sure. He got little attention, though there were still booths in the FSP and the drum circle was in good form. A lot of people rested on the benches, strolled through, or played with their kids around the fountain (which was off.) Last week there was a flock of turkeys. A lot goes away when the market is closed.

 I spoke with many people who find it somewhat overwhelming to cruise the craft market after buying their weekly produce and breads, or walking to their cars with the bags that they need to stop carrying asap and then needing motivation to come back. Those who do shop there are either intentional, looking for specific things, or what might be called a craft shopper, people who just enjoy crafts and seeing what people have thought to make. Craft appreciators. But probably the majority come across the street to visit their friends.

It makes me realize that to be successful on any given Saturday, we have to have more than one type of selling going on. A practical item like a tote bag or a hat on a sunny or rainy day works really well, which of course I already knew, but I learned more about some of the people who walk slowly and browse, and don't seem to be rushing off to other places. They enjoy the whole experience: the meandering paths we like about the southern blocks, the spontaneity of the day being different every week, the ever-amazing enticement of what we all imagine and create. They find that type of thing at the farmers' market as well, so when we are blended like we were the last two weeks, they are quite happy and it helps with their disappointment that the "fun stuff" is gone. There were no buskers this week or last week! I guess the perception is that the crowds are too thin to make it pay. But they were needed.

So everything we provide, the prepared food, the seating, the entertainment, the variety, and the color and life, is what they want. All of it. They want to see their friends if they are local, have interesting conversations if they are not, and do all the things people find available at community gatherings like ours. They want to touch creative lives and connect with them, find the juiciness in life, and they like to spread it to their families and friends. Of course this awareness is not new, and I've been writing about it a long time, but since the two markets separated over the past decades, I felt that not enough of us had the multiple layers of relationships we get by actually supporting each other. I spend a  good amount of my income yesterday, buying plants, bread, meat, pears, many of the things I have searched out over the season as what I need and want across the street. And I know many of us do that, but I was surprised a little at how much support we are actually getting from the farmers. Someone wrote a lovely essay about crafters in their customer newsletter. We've been building on that support thanks to Sonia and maybe next year there will be more openness to cooperative selling opportunities, depending on the priorities of the new ED farmers are hoping to hire. I really hope people speak up for that to them as they get settled in. It may not seem as important as it is. I don't want our November markets to be cancelled. I personally don't want to sell in February or March, but it would certainly be mutually beneficial if the opportunity were open for those who do want to. Everyone benefits when all the types of selling are happening.

I heard one of their staffers say they started in 1919, which of course is false, but I can see why they repeat that, as it gives them legitimacy and a stronger legacy, but I hope I get another chance to share their archives with them someday. I think it would strengthen their legacy and our community if they acknowledge our shared roots. It was such an important part of what Lotte wanted to establish here. The previous farmers had moved inside a building and lost their market in 1959, so there was a solid 11-year gap where there was no farmers' market downtown. They began again within the Saturday Market in 1970, and there were a lot of ins and outs about that shared history, which I documented and lived within, and made my contributions to as well. So I want it to matter, real history, but I get why they don't prioritize it as the truth. They are hard-working individualized strivers like we are, and it's just not our habit to remind everyone how connected we are. 

But as in the greater effort to dismantle the white supremacist power structure in the US, people are stressing that individualism is a lie, and working for the common good, for justice and for each other is a much stronger and more real legacy of humanity everywhere. Showing up for each other, even when it is scary, fighting the separations. Time to let the lies go and do this life together, despite the messiness of it and the amount of discomfort it requires to restructure how you think about things. Many, many people in our community and everywhere are working on this together, and I have faith that the wheels are turning. But it's hard to wait, and to watch all the collateral damage as it is happening. And I know I won't live long enough to really see America change all that much. 

But we who are working on it can keep going in that direction and reaffirm our connections, so I am grateful and happy that I have that opportunity every Saturday. It matters that the market is there. It's better when both sides of the street are full.  

But it isn't about how many booths there are. It's simply about the people who put up those booths and stand in them. The soul of the market is us, the makers, the ones who show up to sell or buy, to stroll or just pass through. The community members are people who bring the meaning to all that we do. Poor Fred brought down his shaker for the second week in a row, searching in vain for the weekly parade, just wanting to say Happy Thanksgiving to as many people as he could. His people just weren't there, and nobody told him. 

It was so disappointing to see the Weekly centerfold of an empty HM map of numbers. Nothing about us, just an ad for a website bought with out hard-earned savings, that isn't even complete, and a list of the "fashion days" which are just a little diversion for people who like costumes. There was no soul in that very expensive ad the members paid for. It was an indulgence of ego for the narcissist and those she supports, and a show of the complete lack of professionalism in our current organization. It was a cold shoulder to all of us who built and maintained this market so it would be here in the present instead of in an archive. They didn't even proofread it after spending all that money. And this is the first appearance of our corporate sponsors, something I do not think the members got to vote on. 

Yeah, we need professional promotions. Yeah, we need professional management. And boy, do we need heart and soul. Stripping it out is going to hurt us for a long long time. I'm glad I still know where and how to find it.