Living in Community

 I've been holding back my emotions and processing the bullying I received on Xmas Eve. There's a lot of background for me that you will know if you have been reading here a long time, which I will keep to myself for now. The one image I won't be able to forget is the entire office staff and some of the site crew watching while I demanded the bullying post be removed from the members' site. They were lined up not to hear me, but to reject me and side with the bully. Accusations flew at me: I "called her out" and "made her cry." I deserved the "natural consequences" of my words. It was pure DARVO: Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender. 

They refused to take the post down, as I protested that she was taking out her anger on poor people...hurting the recipients and applicants to the Kareng Fund. She reposted my writing on social media without my permission, used it to vilify the most unselfish thing our market community does, the grants to people suffering. 

They shrugged and said it was the internet. She named me loudly and tried to turn the community against me. To be clear, in my post I named no one, and did not try to shape opinions. I observed some behavior that went against community norms, and I commented on it, the behavior, the actions, and the pattern recognition I had about the trend of violating the norm of the community. I did not call anyone out. I'm observing patterns and I can't stand silent and pretend I don't see them, but instead of blowing things up when I started seeing those patterns, I confined my voice to my little tiny opinion essays. I tried communicating with the powerful, but they did not respond, and were angry with me. I stopped trying to participate when it was only acceptable within some very narrow limits. 

A person has to go and search out my writing. I don't post it on social media, I don't push it on anyone, I just write essays about my life in a remote corner of the internet. Before the explosion of anger at me the post had 5 readers. Now it has almost 200. The internet works its ways, but it is not our community, and the internet does not make the rules. And while they might not be written down, our community does have rules.

She loudly called me an "Evil Nasty Woman" right there in the food court as I clipped the winning tickets to the baskets. Standing around were dozens of people who had just bought tickets, and had been disappointed to not win one of those five baskets. She loudly declared she and her family would no longer support the Kareng Fund, and I had to ask why. According to her in anger, it was because of me, hurting her feelings in a post someone had brought to her attention. She wanted her families' donations back. I gave her back the one item remaining and had to rummage through the baskets to see if there were more. This made me feel shameful. Donations are freely given...as far as I know, no one has ever taken them back. But she demanded and I went into fawn mode. I didn't fight back. I swallowed and tried to keep working. She escalated, in what I now feel was a proxy fight where she was used to express the outrage that some people have been holding for me for using my free speech rights. I think she was provoked to provide drama for people who feed on it. I keep being accused of creating drama, but that is not me. I write things. I don't even broadcast them. If you don't like what I write, don't read it. Make your own observations, please. Think for yourself. 

Not everyone knows what it is like to live with the same people week after week for years and decades. Some of the members have known me for all these fifty years. They've seen me make mistakes, learn to own them, learn to do better, have my feet held to the fire, try to make amends, try to not make the same mistakes again. We've seen each other do this, sometimes sitting in judgement, sometimes not speaking to each other for years or other times clearing the air and getting over it. Generally we have allowed each other the personal space to do that work without public scrutiny. I've been told we don't hold each other accountable and to a degree that is true. For instance, when someone works in group process, they are not necessarily responsible for the products of the group and the process. They may have tried to block it, they may have initiated it. We don't always know, and we certainly don't know all the discussion and thinking behind their positions or stances, so most of us do suspend judgement and fail to demand accountability. We shrug and say it is "not about me" and stick to our own business and keep working. Sometimes this is not the most healthy response, as we also generally fail to defend each other. 

Many of us have agreed, tacitly or overtly, just to work beside each other and not address our disagreements. I'm certainly holding out some issues that I haven't settled with the people who worked to create them, and I've been the scapegoat many times and watched other people being held as scapegoat, something there is rarely any kind of justice for. Generally time just moves on and people get more chances to act to build their reputations in whatever way they choose. The community allows a wide latitude of behaviors, but it does have rules. No one likes being bullied, so bullies get isolated and people walk away. They are rarely confronted. We are a peace-loving community so we often overlook things, to keep that peace. I'm not saying it is the best way, but it is a longstanding way. 

But sometimes, like now, things become intolerable to a large portion of the membership. I registered that there were several members not at HM who had previously been there, and my guess is they couldn't afford it. Accessibility to those at the low-earning end is a big part of our values. We didn't have a "regular 5% increase" in HM fees as has been stated. There were many years there was no increase, or things were cut to prevent one when costs rose. I remember when it was scary to cross the threshold of $1000. We thought we would lose member participation, and of course we did. Lots of things cost us member participation, and we learned how to balance costs and fees carefully and increase slowly. We're not seeing that caution lately, though it may be there in the board discussions. I stopped attending board meetings a year and a half ago, so I can only hope that the discussions are well-rounded. I think they are. I don't agree with all of the decisions, certainly, but that is nothing new. While sitting there for 15 years without a vote, recording the actions and decisions, there was a lot I didn't agree with. Even when I seemed to be "on the inside" I was rarely if ever a loyal cheerleader. I cheered for the organization, for the community. 

Operating by seeking consensus is something I don't think is still being stressed. Maybe it is there in the quest for unity and the pushing out of different opinions, but it didn't used to be acceptable to banish people for their different opinions. We didn't banish people at all, actually. Membership is voluntary, and we didn't feel it could be taken away unless there was something illegal or unforgivable happening. We worked with everyone who wanted to participate, no matter how difficult it might be. It has never been easy. But when that last board insisted that they should have control over whom they served with, I knew we had lost something irreplaceable. Control had won out over allowing diversity. The wrong people had a majority to enact that control over the entirety of the membership. We are not a community that responds well to control tactics. We don't like to be manipulated and we really don't like to be lied to. We'll deny that those things are happening unless we are forced to see the patterns, but they are undeniable. My list of unprofessional behaviors is now 8 pages. When I said we were not hiring a professional manager it wasn't the first time, but this has been the worst time. 

Natural consequences are what unfolds in direct relation to what is done. It was not natural to target the KF to vilify one person by one person who felt hurt. So allowing the post to stand was unfortunate. I didn't read it closely, as I don't do social media at work, but I know my selling was interrupted and my holiday and the end of my fiftieth season was tarnished and tattered and I examined resignation over harming the Fund. I've thought about walking away from market a thousand times. I don't expect now to be supported as a member or even for my free speech rights as a human. I expect more retaliation and I expect it to feel irrational and angry like that episode did. I don't know how to process that the people whose salaries I earn for them, the organization I support with my labor and energy, will not be supporting me back for probably the rest of my increasingly short life remaining to me. That's an oppression I'm learning to live with, but haven't learned to accept.

But I do know how it is to live in community, as badly as I do that. I've learned it the hard way over the fifty years. I know I operate best in the middle distance, not too enmeshed, not all the way disconnected, but close to the neighbors and friends I have learned to trust, tolerant of the many I disagree with, and willing to lead from the middle. I want what the members want, but only those parts that build community, help us treasure each other and our equality, allow us all to thrive. If the members want mean people controlling our lives, I will gladly be a nasty woman. I thought that was a badge of honor in the macrocosm...I think it may be in the microcosm as well, despite the confusion of people who don't think those are related. 

This controlling group of people wants only their inner circle to matter, and the rest of us to get on board or go away. If we don't go willingly we will be forced out. We'll be distorted and vilified in the narratives promoted to the community as if they were truth. We're not only divided, we're supposed to use power to set that division into the policies and the future. Money matters, but not community. 

It's just not going to work. No one has the only key to the community treasurebox. Vi came to visit on Xmas Eve too, looking sweet and cared for, still Vi although she cannot see now and has to rely on her other senses and her family. She reminded me of what we lose when someone leaves, and why we don't let them leave all the way, if they will stay connected. I still quote her: All Will Be Well, and the Universe is unfolding as it will. Not sure she actually said that in those words, and she obviously didn't say it first. But it speaks to our need for patience and a kind of faith. 

Community is what people are attracted to in the market, and speaking about when they say they come to the market to see me, or for a demonstration, or for a band or performer they love. We do it right in the middle of our town and we do it every week, so although we keep moving, our collective memory and history is always with us. There will always be people who don't understand it, don't value it, or don't feel part of it. It has lost its charm for many and the feelings of belonging come and go. But nothing an individual thinks about it or tries to do can substantially change the reality of it.

We all have the power to hurt each other, but we choose not to. We choose to elevate others when they do well, but not to reward them. We volunteer to give, not to get. We serve, and take responsibility. We serve each other, and the organization, the market community, and the greater community. We serve in gratitude for the opportunity and to protect the absolute jewel we created, built and nurture. 

We try to do better. I can not face a future of being bullied, so I hope that is over. I do not want an apology, but I want the person to change, if they will, if they can. I don't want to carry or pursue a grievance. I want to let it gently go into the past, and do what I can to make it through this challenging offseason with joy and creativity. 

But that may not be the choice I get to make. I'm easy to bully. I make myself vulnerable at every turn, and I am always surprised when someone turns that to their advantage. I got hugged by someone who has bullied me for over a decade, and told by several "We have not always agreed with each other, but I have always respected you..." We don't have to agree. We can have 667 different opinions. We do have to preserve the opportunity to have that diversity. 

We have to live together. Yes, all of us.