Getting started when it didn't snow like they said it would

 Is anything ever simple? I'm in the mood to find something that is...usually some kind of work, for me. Too cold to work outside, though I am hoping for snow as that simplifies things for me. I just want to watch it fall while I eat some comfort food. I always like it when nature takes over and shows us the folly of taking every activity and human impulse so seriously. Maybe not always...but I am willing to surrender to nature.

Surrendering to life, I guess I am practicing, but I'm going to keep doing the things I do until something prevents me from it. I climbed up into the very large apple tree last week to cut off some of the highest branches in my ongoing effort to keep the size contained and the branch direction downward, or at least not upward. Made some progress and thoroughly enjoyed it, knowing the whole time that anyone seeing me up there would be horrified. Actually I am safe...I have places where I can sit straddling big branches with plenty to hold onto when I do move around. I make sure I have three points of safety in every position or movement. I've never even come close to falling or slipping when I'm in the tree. I make sure to come down before I get too adrenal or tired, and I only spend an hour or less up there every year. Every year I figure it's the last time. I've been a tree-climber my whole life and I will be sad to not be a tree-climber. But age is coming, always coming for me. 

My workload as a screenprinter is still quite do-able and my schedule is really quite light, as I have lots of inventory and only need to add a few things to the retail. June might be a little crowded as I have a short family reunion back east in June, but I don't anticipate the amount of overwork I have done in other years. I'm planning on OCF at the moment but still worried about Covid. My goal at this point is to start a transition to ending my booth there. I still need the money so it will be a few more years I guess, depending on how it goes. I don't think I have some of the people involved who used to be. I think the young people have moved on. Some of the elders have maybe as well. But nothing about doing that event has ever been pinned down that tightly so I'm used to some uncertainty. The 4th of July is an unwelcome wrinkle this year but I'll find a way. Problem is that once my stuff is out there, I have to be out there, and it's too hard to get it all done with a Wednesday arrival. So we'll see. I'm still fantasizing about simplifying. I can do it!

Speaking of fantasy I've been watching one of the adjacent properties to my house as it sold and is now a rental. They built a fence right across the backyard which divides it in two, and I'm wondering if they are trying to do that permanently. If so, I wonder if I would want to try to buy the half that I look out upon. I got pretty excited about that. I'd get a lot of sunnier space for gardening, two apple trees, a cob house, a shed, and would have a big yard instead of a small one, plus control of the vegetation that hangs over the fence. It was a fun fantasy for a minute. I could maybe even leverage it with my good credit and savings. But of course then I would be in debt, for the rest of my life, and would have more property tax and insurance to pay and probably a maintenance nightmare with the cob house. It's not a dwelling, has no plumbing or electricity, but I could use it as a studio or guest house and could love that. All in all I think I would be super happy with the whole prospect but it is not something I will really pursue. It doesn't seem to be currently listed anyway, but I wouldn't even have this house if it had been a decision just up to me...I'm just not a risk taker. I needed a push. So the reality that I have no partner to lead me through something like that is just a limitation I can't overcome. Same for any big project...I'll just put those off until I'm somehow forced to deal with them. I sort of plan to do them, then just don't until the proverbial ship sails and a realistic decision is made. Same for a lot of things. Decision-making is hard, and procrastination is much easier.

So I'm waiting for snow and whiling away my day writing down my thoughts. I'm not deciding right now about something really important that I just learned about last night. I did want to commiserate with someone, so I told a friend this morning who said all the right things, and that was helpful to clarify what I should, think I have to, or actually must do. Nothing right away. It's something that weighs heavily in my life so needs to have careful thought. It's not simple, but there are simple ways to deal with it. The complexities are a mix of projection, drama, and things I have no control over. I have the ability to set those aside and not consider them. Making the decision and outcome a clean process and resolution are very high on my list of ways to handle this. I figure if I give it a few days the projection and potential drama will settle out of it and what would work best is not to feed those. If I just do my best and plan to be my best self, I can rely on myself. I have a good record of that and now that that's settled, I can move onto the next thing: what am I doing today to be productive?

It's not snowing and it's the middle of the week and I have many choices, so I'm going to pick one. Maybe a couple. Being productive settles me down and makes me happy and feeling like I deserve a reward so then I can eat something delicious and read something from my towering piles of books and maybe doze a bit like all the old people do. Knowing me I will probably pick a couple of projects and do something on each. I've learned to keep projects at a point when there is something easy to do to get started again, so I can just launch in. Now that I've written something (which is productive, as it keeps me typing and spelling and trying to articulate which are important skills) I could get busy writing something more. 

Okay, revising the script it is. I have been advised that all of my lines need to lose the grammar and structure and get punched up to sound like comedy. This is a style issue...I think my long sentences are funny, but this is not a mainstream opinion. I'm not writing "my script." It's not "my show." Ego has to go and the job has to be done to fit the needs of the troupe, audience, goals of the event, and the moment we are living within. I hope I can channel all that into my edits. It's tricky, but a good problem to solve without having to get up out of my chair and fight the kitty for another spot. I'll just keep writing, but on another page. Maybe snow later for a reward. Could probably go ahead and start eating the comfort foods, because no one is watching. And none of it really matters, in the very big picture.

Fighting the Norms

Not my tree...

 It's sunny, and I am going to prune fruit trees today, but there's still frost and my hands do not like cold, so I have a few minutes. I'm trying to untangle a lot of complicated thoughts so I'm  looking forward to the kind of day when my mind can drift around while I attempt to create some order in my habitat.

I live with visual clutter and I don't  hate it. I've always created it, and while I can appreciate the peace of a simpler view, I need visual references around me to put together my concepts and do that further study that deeper thoughts require. So I have piles of unread books and unsorted papers and lots of postcards and little images on my walls. Not everyone would be able to thrive or even stand to be in my environment. 

In my yard I try hard to maintain spots where birds are protected and I throw seed in there so they can eat without the many cat predators. They turn over the leaves and eat insects there too, and though my yard is small, it seems wild to a degree. Right now I have tons of sticks and I find most of them beautiful. So I gradually put them into the stick tote and save a lot of branches just because. If you've seen my booth you know I find lots of them useful.

Some of my tangled thoughts are about cultural appropriation, as it keeps coming around, mostly from defenders of it. Their thin arguments are that it is appreciation, everybody does it, and so on. My feeling is that once you have seen it as racist, the discussion is over. If an oppressed group tells you something is hurtful, you listen to them. Even if it is "not everyone in the group" that says so. Often defenders of it claim that they somehow got permission from one of those people. It's basic to me...if someone tells you something is hurtful, stop doing it. 

I've done approproated in my artistic past, and enabled it, and it's still hard to say no when I am asked to participate. Often the people are my friends and we'd like to agree to disagree, but once I realized it was racist, that just ended my ability to rationalize it away. I don't think I, as a white person, get to decide what is racist or not. That comes from the person on the receiving end. So when two letters from white men I kind of know were the only statements in the Weekly letters that weighed in on the Shedd show where a blonde woman sang a Billie Holiday tribute, I wanted to write one back. I didn't (yet) because I thought maybe a BIPoC person would. But I expect a lot of people are pretty tired of having to explain it. 

It does seem like there will always be apologists for racism and oppression, and maybe a lot of people have learned to just not give them a bigger platform, and ignore them. You can't expend all of your energy trying to change the minds of white men who don't get it and don't try to. It's one of the reasons I stopped identifying as heterosexual...I did not find men, in general, trying to keep up. 

Valentine's Day always tires me out, too. So het, so focused on that two-person couple who must trade expensive romantic gifts or fail at love. I am just not very capable of tolerating romanticism anymore. It's destructive fantasy for me. I actually don't care about your anniversary. Sorry if that seems unfriendly, but it just doesn't interest me. It's not just that I don't have a partner. I get the usefulness of the bonding rituals and of having supportive partners in this difficult life, but I don't like all the fancy wrappings for what is a basic decision to partner up in an attempt to make life easier and arguably, deeper and more complex to navigate. I see that there are rewards to working in relationship, and I suppose if I had found some better opportunities, I could feel differently. But I didn't, and am not looking for them now, and am happy in my ace solitude. And I can buy my own chocolate. 

It's similar in that once I realized how destructive romantic fantasy could be, I couldn't go back. I know how good it can feel. I'm happy for you if you have found your way to a nice place there. Just don't have time for it.

I'm interested in working in community and in relationships not based in sexuality, which is why, I suppose, I support four essentially nonprofit organizations. I go to their meetings, I try to be helpful by communicating as well as I can and doing whatever tasks I have skills for, and mostly I enjoy it. But sometimes it gets ugly and I can't extract myself, in a couple of them. I've learned to be patient as things come back to where I feel ethically and practically able to continue, and sometimes I just take quiet breaks like I plan to today. I've tried to disconnect from any urgency to do the tasks to anyone's else's sense of immediate performance or arcane rules and I just keep doing them the way I think I should. It works pretty well.

Watching the rise of authoritarianism and the departure of a lot of the people I enjoy and respect most is pretty hard though. I support their choices and I expect to have to draw my own lines like I did on the "transparency" issue of meeting recordings. I could go. I would welcome having more time to do things like this (though I might have less material to write about....) 

A lot of the things we work on are circular. We discuss things in one of my committees for years. We sort through them, make a little mostly unseen progress, and then when new people come into the discussion we do it again. It's the way it has to go, I think...building consensus takes a lot of discussion. Conditions change and that changes the parameters of the possible solutions. But again, I have patience. That's why our discussion issues need to be posted on our agenda and scheduled for discussion over the long stretch of time it takes to figure them out so they work for the largest number of people. 

It's not ideal, but anytime someone swoops in with an authoritarian solution, that just ends the progress. The discussions derail and division occurs. You would think this would be obvious that authoritarian, top-down decision-making rarely results in change that works. Anyone who knows our community knows this. You need consensus or the drive for it. It's often called "buy-in" in our mainstream framework and that's similar, but you never hear about "buy-out." That's what's happening now. People are being closed out of the consensus-seeking process, and they are bowing out. It may be intentional on the part of the authoritarians. Makes things easier. You can ignore the people who disagree, when they consent to stop trying for consensus or a voice. That's one reason I tend to be stubborn about walking away. But I have not been put to the test, personally, as much as some others.

I mean, I did choose to stop performing and enabling cultural appropriation. It cost me some friendships, and will cost me more, I expect, because I'm not going back to agreeing that it is okay. I might not confront it as boldly as I could. It's still complex and layered when it comes to art and to a few other areas, but I'm gradually getting clearer on how to deal with it. If there's a question about it, just don't do it. And support the people who come from and speak from the cultures being stolen from. Not that hard. 

I didn't write the Weekly. I had a letter printed just a week before regarding archival accuracy. Not related, but I have a terrible tendency to dominate discussions if I don't check myself. A lot of my complicated feelings from a meeting last night were that I kept speaking out of turn and not raising my hand. I worked to stop but I go to a lot of meetings where we don't need to raise hands and I also think faster than discussions move usually, and I want to direct them in useful ways. I am probably arrogant about it. I've been told that everyone else in the group (a different group, and by a misogynist) is "cowed" by me and won't disagree or dialogue with me. I interrupt. I have conversations with people who can interrupt each other and still feel like it is a conversation...a couple of conversations at the same time. It's not the norm. Fitting into the norm is not easy. But I used the mute button on myself as much as I could. Still need to do better.

Yeah, I don't have a lot of time left to fit into the norms. If the norm is going to be authoritarian and heterosexual-only and infused with white supremacy culture, I don't have time for it. I have a lot of work to do and these days and years are short. So do your best to keep up, if you want to work with me. I don't think that's arrogant. I think it's practical. I think it's necessary.

I know many of the things I want to accomplish will go unfinished. But I am going to get my fruit trees pruned, and that is what matters right now. See ya!

Bullying caused the problems, and it has not gone away

 I have this one post that has over 5500 readers (or just hits) because it somehow went viral on FB. It was written in February 2020 which you will remember was just when the pandemic was beginning to be in the news a lot...so probably my title, Oh These Times, just makes people want to click when they see it. I mean, most of my posts get like 30 readers. If I post it on FB, sometimes a couple hundred. That was the only post that got even a thousand readers. It's a mystery of algorithms I guess.

It wasn't about the pandemic, which I was not aware of at the time. It was about me going to the OCF Board with a guideline change that tightened up the process of appointing a new Booth Rep for your privileged piece of the structure and mostly addressed the bullying that is regularly done by the power structure of the organization. It may not always be intentional, and I don't think it was meant to be by any Board members at that meeting, but that was also the beginning days of MAGIC and boy, did that turn out to be a bullying group, in my observation. Here's the link to the post https://divinetension.blogspot.com/2020/02/oh-these-times.html

 The particular meeting isn't all that significant at this point, or even the guideline change, because as we know the pandemic happened and we didn't occupy any booths in 2020, or 2021 either. And I stopped writing after someone who was bullying me excerpted that post and others to bully me with my words. I also stopped posting most of my links on FB, as I felt so vulnerable during the pandemic. It changed me to see how actually threatening we all are to each other. I pulled back in a lot of ways and don't think I've recovered much trust. The bullies just got more powerful and so much worse, despite the gifts we got of learning new ways to identify their tactics and band together to fight disinformation. There's been progress, but as far as movement at OCF, I would not say it has been progressive movement. We're still mostly in denial and obfuscation.

No one seems to be promoting an anti-bullying effort, except a whole bunch of people who are trying and then mostly drawing back as it continues. No one wants to be a target. No one feels like speaking their piece is actually limiting the power of the bullying group. The disinformation is churning out, all articulate and seemingly logical, and starting from way back with the early assumptions that are being held up as truth seems like a huge amount of emotional labor that few of the targeted are willing to continue to do. The bullies double down, as that is one thing they can be counted on to do. And they lie. And the fact that one or two of them comes from a place of deluded but well-meaning righteousness is not working to bring out any of the truth that has been long buried at this point. 

Multiple groups are working through the discussion process now and most of them are not getting anywhere. The whole existence of MAGIC has been to use strongarm tactics to force actions that are not progressive, not in the direction of more openness and transparency, just coming from a narrow agenda that lies underneath what's currently happening. It's white people wanting to be comfortable, and there's a toxic wrinkle of some people supporting a person I know as a criminal. 

Like many, I'm not really engaging. My views are perhaps known, and I have most definitely voted no on the removal action. I learned with my personal bully that engaging usually didn't help the situation. I saw them as having a PTSD reaction that they needed to navigate through when they sent angry messages, and felt that it was not my job or within my capabilities to help them with that. So I generally learned to disregard their words and messages and just operate as if they weren't in my life at all. 

Naturally my reactions made the problems worse, so my non-reactions did make the problem better, for me anyway, but the base issue of bullying within the membership has not been addressed at all. Some of us have just figured out who the main bullies are, and who are just their misled supporters. But they're very loud right now in their hope to ruin the career-long contributions of a Board member who is willing, as a white man, to make white people uncomfortable.

Hippies, while trying to free everyone, did come out of some of the liberation movements of the 60s but a lot of them stayed lost in the hippie delusions that wanting freedom was enough. The privileged among us got some freedom. For instance, back then there were lots of fixer-upper houses that could be bought for very little and many of us got them, fixed them up, and increased their value by factors of 10 and 20 times the investment. Lucky to have a Mom who advanced me the down payment I needed. Same for OCF spots. Back in the early 80s you could go carve a spot out of the brush and build a booth there. That added up to privilege. 

Lots of privilege comes from being in the right place at the right time, seizing some asset or position, and then holding onto it and increasing the value. Sure, hard work is applied, but being in that right place was key. That happened in the pandemic, too...people stepped into positions that opened up, and some people took advantage of the uncertainty and chaos of the pandemic to secure their "wealth." It was easy to rationalize and find excuses when we all felt like we could die from breathing. Still true, of course, but mostly not for the privileged. Or so they think anyway.

But hard things happen. My generation is dying off much more rapidly than it would have, and young people's apocalyptic future got immeasurably more horrific. I've said "I'm glad I'm old" way too many times. All this energy wasted on dividing people and domination games is just wrong. It's ruining what so many people have worked for all of their lives. Generations back, as well.

I don't have a good solution, either. Just figure it out, people. Think harder. Stop pushing so hard for your way, as the only right way. Chances are excellent that it is not the only right way.

Domination culture is white supremacy culture. We can't thrive under domination culture. Reduce it down. Winners mean losers. We're all losing so much on this course. 

Downtown Could Change, But How?

 Well, the attempt to regain my idealism didn't last long. I'm back to "We will never be able to make any progress" because so many are working against it. I feel naive about the training...even giving well-meaning white hippies tools does not mean things will come out level and plumb.

I'm sadly going to persist in chipping away at things, since I am not in the financial position that I can walk away from it yet. I'm nearing the end of my productive life but I am healthy and can expect to live for a couple more decades perhaps. I won't be able to sustain the amount of effort it takes to sell retail, at least not the way I'm currently doing it, but my social security doesn't even cover my utilities and property taxes, so I will need a lot of savings or a continued income stream. 

I suppose opportunities could develop for other sources of income besides screenprinting, and they will have to, but that isn't all that promising. Any product in another medium and technique set would require jurying and that might be hard. I know my current products would not score high and it's likely my vague plans to make silk scarves or paper or Jell-O items (all of those things are lightweight and much more portable) won't produce items that will sell as well as the ones I have now. But physics and that reality is going to come for me at some point. That's just inevitable.

That's one reason I have been so diligent about avoiding Covid. The things still being discovered about longterm damage and hidden damage in the body are compelling. My basic plan is not to have any accidents or develop any debilitating conditions. Pretty magical thinking.

I've been speculating a lot about the future of downtown with this latest push to move City Hall to the EWEB and it will be interesting to think about what opens up. The space they were going to use, at the north end of the farmers' block, would then be open and it's possibly a way toward getting the improvements on the southern block that we still need. If we had a bigger food circle space with an improved stage, we could fit in more flexible ways of selling food, such as carts and trucks that are more self-contained. It's the way things are going in the food industry and there aren't a lot of food businesses that can equip just an 8x8 or 10x8 plus fit in the people required to make a living in it. We do have some who have been able to do that, but it's a stretch and limits the number of food businesses we can attract. We also need the space for the intersection of entertainment and food, as we know that works well for us. 

The big stopgap of improving the blocks is what to do with us in the meantime. We saw with the farmers' pavilion that it takes longer and is more involved than slapping down some new concrete here and there. The design was throughly negotiated and is still useable for a few more years at least, and retains many of the things we value about how we are currently using the blocks. But the idea of moving to the Riverfront for a season or more leaves me cold...personally it would just be harder to get there, and I can't envision us in that space. There would be some stringing out along the pathways for sure, and would we really be able to draw our customers (and new ones) there? It's a big maybe.

But putting one block of booths at a time over on the northwest block, with some supplementation from Park Streets, seems doable to me. So half of us relocate for one season, while they do the east block, and the other half relocate the next year, while they do the west block. That seems workable, though not perfect. Other alternatives seem tougher...like using Broadway, which isn't really enough space for all of us, or that parking lot down the street which is bare of shade and doesn't have a durable enough surface to work for us. We'd still be in some compromised position behind the farmers, but not so much. 

Anyway I am planning to take a look at the space with that in mind and also cruise the Riverfront again and try to think positively about it. If the access from 5th St is adequately flat and navigable, it does solve the problem of biking under the bridge which prevents any access for me with my trailer. It's farther, but if it's flat I suppose I can go farther. I get anxious because I know I won't be biking to Market forever. But I'm going to do it as long as I can. It is physically easier than driving, believe it or not, because of the easier loading and unloading processes. I lift heavy things about half as much or less with the efficient way I've worked out. Lifting is going to be my main problem.

Today the City Council is discussing downtown priorities at noon so I'll be watching. I think I know what they will be, but it's always surprising in some way to watch the process of city government. I don't expect a direct mention of Saturday Market. We let them know we still need some improvements on the blocks, but those are not likely to make the top ten or so of projects the city wants to focus on. Those will be, I predict, safety and housing. We'll see soon though. If I get something to write about, I'll come back and put in a few more paragraphs.

Meanwhile, just mounting up my new year slowly. It's too cold to prune trees but I do have plenty to do indoors. Reading Cloud Cuckoo Land, which I like a lot, and watching Yellowstone (just season one so far) which may not hold my interest since it is so stereotypical and triggers memories of my silly adventure into the cowboy world back in the times before I landed here (mid-70s). I might write about it again someday, but it was short and awkward. I saw some real stuff though! 

Okay, going to watch the city meeting and finish all the tasks I started this morning. I thought I would print hats, but maybe some other day. 

I did watch the meeting and the Council, acting as the Urban Renewal Board, moved forward the plan to renew the funding for the Downtown Urban Renewal District. This just means instead of stopping collecting taxes into it for uses downtown, they will continue putting money in. They have to go through a lot of steps yet, but at some point there will be some millions of dollars available to spend on downtown projects. The top three priorities, as I expected, were Housing, Public Safety, and Social Services. That dropped commercial development off the list of top priorities, but they collected a lot of feedback and the Park Blocks rebuild is part of Public Safety, in that it is not as accessible for people experiencing disabilities as it should be. So there is some chance that at least some of the redesign might be brought back in a slow way over time. We'll know more as the process develops. 

It is interesting to read all of the many responses they collected in the public engagement process, which are repetitive and varied at the same time. There are a vast number of people who don't feel safe coming downtown and one thing Saturday Market can do is put some focus on presenting ourselves as safe in all the ways we know we are. We can also do our part to show up at other times to keep downtown populated with safe people doing regular things. It makes a difference. So next time you are downtown, maybe find a place to eat or shop or spend a bit of time to help create more safety by showing up. That's what's missing for a lot of people on days other than Saturday. 

You can find the presentation of the noon work session on the city website, along with the agenda which is 145 pages of data and comments, including a letter from me asking the city to keep some PB improvements on the table. There aren't many mentions of us there, specifically, though a lot of people are pleased with the Pavilion and want to see more things like it. A remodel of our space would please people too. I think we should take another look at it, as a long range plan, and open our minds to some solution for our main objection to it: we can't risk losing our livelihoods while it happens. There has to be an elegant solution for that.

Getting Myself Ready

Unattributed...I wish I could draw this well...

   I attended my first DEI training last night. In the interest in protecting safe space I won't identify the circumstances or participants, and I will try hard to just focus on the things about it that I need to process. I'm feeling like I can't do the work I planned for today until I download some of these emotions here...I already journaled for over an hour about it but this format challenges me to put it into more of an essay form, with things like hypotheses and conclusions and I generally get some personal discovery in the process too. Three of the last four posts I wrote ended up being titled "Finding..." something which I didn't do intentionally and is lazy but often the titles come last after I see where my writing took me. 

I was afraid to go...I listed my fears and most were silly...like that I would be kicked out, that I would have to declare that I am racist in the core, that I would say completely foolish things and prove to everyone I am a fool...but what happened was not anticipated and I am glad about that. I didn't want it to be an experience where I didn't move forward in some way. I didn't have a plan for that motion, just tried to go in and be brave. So I kept my camera on but told myself it would probably not be that many people. It was many more than I expected. 

I have complicated relationships with quite a few of them. We've worked together, I've served them in various ways, I've disagreed with them in various ways, and had confrontations with a small number of them in disagreement that we have not processed. I didn't think about that, being focused on the learning opportunity. I just didn't know what exactly I would be learning.

I missed the first of this three-part workshop, but that covered the basics which I hope I have a pretty good grasp of from all of the reading I have done in the last few years. This part turned out to be visioning, and essentially, unifying toward a common goal. It was a group of leaders...and I am not really in a leadership position in the structure, though I do lead. As I mentioned in one of the breakout sessions, what I do is lead from the middle, as I characterize it. I tend to do it in all of my groups by the way I approach the tasks I choose to do and the ways I support group process. This supports my needs to feel safe and to belong and has worked well most of the time. I'm an avoider and do not do well in confrontation or direct conflict-processing, which is a place I plan to work and learn, but when I am more or less guiding a group in a direction I think it needs to go, I have an openness to where that ends up, and it serves me to keep my goals to myself sometimes so other people can bring theirs. So I mostly focus on recording what happens (taking notes) and providing that written resource for the benefit of the progress we all make together.

When I take notes at a workshop like this, I keep a column on the left where I put my emotional observations and responses so they don't overwhelm me. I was only taking notes for my own benefit, but as the ways things were framed was going to be useful to me, I wrote everything down for later. The column on the left turned out to be a life-saver. My emotional responses surprised me and took a lot of my attention. I had trouble focusing on the content of the workshop. Because it was a gathering of leaders who have specific roles, and I don't have that role myself, I had to spend some time deciding which of my roles I would work within. It was interesting to sort through them and find a place for myself. There was some transformation going on for me that I had not expected and was not prepared for. I stumbled into it. I'm still not comfortable there.

I didn't want to make any of it about me, but my overwhelming feelings were that I did not belong there and was not welcome. That was so useful to feel...that is what marginalized people feel all the damn time. I am not marginalized, really...I'm an old white lady who sells a popular product and has a lot of skills for which I am rewarded in many ways. I've built myself what I would call a privileged life on the foundations of a privileged life as a member of a dominant culture. I've surrounded myself with people who are from that culture and we've banded together to carve ourselves out a physical space where we have a lot of freedom and latitude to be ourselves. It's not mainstream, but it looks a lot like it. I've been able to be lazy about most DEI goals. I care about them, but they're mostly not about me. But this was.

Of course in my case some large amount of it was projection. Nobody was glaring at me or dissing me in any way. One person was super friendly (so of course I felt manipulated...I'm not very trusting sometimes) but things settled out as we focused on the tasks and I did my running commentary about my feelings. I did turn off my camera after the first breakout session as I was shaking and triggered and needed to calm down. Zooms can be intimate as we look into each others' homes and are big heads on each other's screens. I was able to turn it back on by reminding myself that I was just one of a lot of little heads most of the time and I was distracting myself from the work I was there to do. The presenter wanted us to see each other.

So I stumbled along trying to refine my vision and answer the challenges from the presenter and set my feelings off to the left for later. I identified what I call some of my catholic things...will I be forgiven for my trespasses, am I guilty of all of the possible sins people might be assuming (or correct about) from the recent or deeper past, am I, myself, forgiving? One of the things listed as ways to reach the welcoming attitude we all aspire to was to turn judgement into curiosity. Another was to allow for non-closure, accept it. Not everything is going to be neatly wrapped up and pretty forevermore. Some of the damage we cause each other is lasting, and I cannot believe that I am immune from causing damage to others. A lot of things have happened while we have not been working together in person that are in between us when we first meet again. But there we were, working together, which I deeply believe is how we do our best, so at some point I realized that I was, by my presence there, re-committing to my work, to my complex relationships, and to my leadership such as it is. I was easing into a healing process. 

I'm still hesitant about it. My idealism hasn't recovered and divisive things, and bullying actions, are still happening and still possible. I do not have trust relationships with some people and might not regain them. Maybe I don't want to...maybe I'm safer if I don't trust everyone in the room. But maybe we can work together despite that...if we share a vision, and if it is a one we have for the common good.

And, at baseline, we do. We were being asked to identify that vision and then refine it into specific actions and strategies to work for it. We weren't expected to do it all at once...it is a long term project. What I finally did do was default to the vision that I have been working toward for decades...I call it ending the Us vs. Them. As soon as I mentioned it in a breakout group, we all agreed we had seen the gaps in reaching that. We had slightly different versions of it, but it is real, and it still persists despite the work I have done to diminish it, and really it is the core of DEI itself. Some people are perceived as others, either "below us" or "above us" and "we" see ourselves as a particular group that is either marginalized or burdened by the marginalized. We're not unified in working toward a common vision. We're not trusting that others share our vision that we are a bit afraid to believe in ourselves. 

Is it realistic? Is it improvable? Are we under the weight of a broken idealism that wasn't reality to begin with? Why haven't the things we've been doing worked better? My focus has been education...encouraging others to see the resources available and see others as available to help us access them, and not out to get in the way of our personal goals, which are often selfish ones.

It's certainly complicated by our roles but I return to the thing that spurred me to volunteer way back probably 15 years ago. I'd been volunteering in my other groups for my whole life here...fairly consistently. I'd been critical of lots of people for not being available as resources to me...but as I wrote the complaining letter that I didn't send, it boiled down to realizing that I didn't feel seen, and that was because I wasn't showing myself. I wasn't pitching in and bringing my skills. So I volunteered to take minutes and began a long and varied commitment to the pitching in of being a part of a flawed yet powerful group.

I'm still cynical and wary and hurt and loyal to others who are still hurt, but I can't sit forever in that place, and I can't just walk away. So I have opened the door. Probably only a person or two will even notice. I doubt my absence was noted, as I doubt my presence last night was noted. I'm glad I haven't burned too many bridges as I struggled through everything, and much of it is still in motion so this is a tenuous hold I have here. But it was a transformation. 

The work is transformational. It scares us because it is so essential and it can be a rollercoaster. All of the parts, ugly and lovely, have to happen because it starts with the individual, and that is me. 

Next is the interpersonal. I saw allies for me in that group, along with the people that I project hate me (that self-aggrandizing, because they probably don't care about me enough to hate me.) But I feel like I might be able to reach for that common vision when we do meet again and have our first interaction after shunning each other while we figured it all out. We don't have to all like each other. We just have to work together. We can learn to be more forgiving, more comfortable, more committed, and claw back a little of that unrealistic idealism that has fueled us to get this far. 

I feel like I can, and must, do this. I'm not afraid of ugliness, and I've gained a lot of strength in the last few years to call out things like bullying and all the many ways we oppress each other instead of supporting each other while we heal and walk forward. It's worth doing. I have missed my idealism. I long to buy back in, wary and with some limits, to a bigger vision for our community and our world. 

Just saying...I'm the one who asked for the logo with the Diversity Equity and Inclusion around the outside. The t-shirts I made said "Transforming the ****." I still want that. I want to move my dial from the cynical end to the idealistic end, just a notch or two at a time. I know it is a path fraught with pain and suffering but also that damn, elusive joy. I just have to choose that. I will carry a piece of it for you. Next time we see each other, let me slip it into your pocket. It can be a secret if you aren't ready.

Finding a Few Words

 Got almost a week of almost complete silence and enjoyed it too much. Could do another week. Watched a lot of birds and read some books. Did some cleaning. Will probably get back into the shop today to get organized for working again.

Thought a lot about the Jell-O Art Show and the archiving but didn't get started. Really tried to have a real vacation without the constant work. It was nice enough to get started on the pruning so I have sticks all over the yard, but in the places where I put them, not like after the storm. That was a lot of wind. I feel like I need to make the apple tree a lot lighter so if it does blow down, maybe it won't do a lot of damage. Usually the strongest winds come from the south, which is blocked by the shop, one reason I think that tree has lasted so long. The shade is so important to keeping the house and yard cool in summer, I'd hate to lose it completely, but it's probably a hundred by now. Still gives decent apples when the squirrels don't eat all the blossoms and buds first. 

I've gotten a lot more willing to prune radically as my trees age. I can see how they do better with shorter limbs and airier, less dense crowns. My rule is I want to be able to reach all of it with the pole pruner so I don't have to hire anyone to do my yardwork yet. It's my fun to wander around the yard making things less chaotic here and there. Still like to leave a lot of cover for birds and possums but with the number of dogs on my block I'm about the only habitat left. I spend a lot of time watching the backyard. 

The Stellar's Jays are amusing. I saw one tuck some seeds into a branch and then cover them with a bit of moss. I think they all watch each other hiding seeds and then raid the caches...chickadees probably hide the most. When the seed feeder gets low they go into overdrive. My theory is that the squirrels can smell the hidden seeds but the birds all watch the squirrels and follow them around for the bits they drop. Lots of hungry wildlife, but I'm not seeing evidence of rats for a change. Maybe that's the good side of having lots of dogs around. 

Still feeling immersed in silence, so not a lot to report. Not a lot of energy for picking up my various responsibilities so I'll probably continue dragging my feet. On the last can of cat food though and I haven't figured out what all I need to print for inventory. It's a bit too wet and cold to dye bags, but I still have to fit in the laundry on any day that even looks dry. I put it out, it gets less damp, and I bring it in to finish off. I would still never buy another dryer. I hope I never stop trying to consume less and subvert that dominant paradigm. The whole season of buying leaves me cold and while I also try to sell things, I have reached an uneasy settled place with that, for the time being anyway. I'm very grateful to have a way to make money that is working. 

Still, the Friday night before the first Saturday off, I dreamt about trying to get to Market. I had some kind of funky pushcart more like a luggage rack and I kept thinking of more things I needed to take. I never made it downtown. There was snow, a hilly terrain, and it was in some strange city. Also I am usually looking for a functional bathroom in so many of my dreams. I realized today that probably all of the semi-functional bathrooms in my memory are dream images. I can't imagine what house I would have been in with a non-functional toilet...that seems impossible. Plus I have only been in a house or two in the last many years. I remember my Mom had an often-told dream that her toilet overflowed all down her sweeping marble staircase into her opulent entryway. I think it was her way of telling herself that she never really wanted that dream house...as it turned out she lived over 60 years in what was her first and only real house of her marriage. I guess that is kind of turning out true for me, too, although I have lived in both houses on my property and built most of this one, so maybe closer to my dream. 

I think she loved her house, but when it came time to turn it into her old-age security, she didn't complain. I tried not to, as I didn't go back and help with the liquidation. I knew I would want much more than was good for me to bring home and the best way to remain unattached was to let it all get sold or given away to other people. I have very clear memories of that house and some of them are not that pleasant anyway, so I don't need to feel attached. I'm also shocked to find out there was a covenant on the deed...we lived in a restricted neighborhood. Delaware style, though...it was owned by an Italian Catholic man who bought the land and developed it in the mid-1940s. I suppose he was just "punching down" by excluding Black people, since in other locations Catholics were also not as human as other humans (here in Eugene, for instance) but it's disturbing that it was right there on the deed and my Dad signed off on it. Probably Mr. Paoletti also had to sign off on it when he bought it whenever that was. It was 1956 when we bought the house, which had been built by the previous owner. It was semi-rural then and I loved the neighborhood and roamed freely as a kid. I knew the area was segregated, but of course was not aware of the reality, that it wasn't by choice, and that violence was close to the surface of it. Delaware did not secede but it was primarily southern in the colonial era, and there was plenty of Jim Crow. And one of the last lynchings, very near my house. None of which entered my grade-school consciousness.

I simply did not look for any challenges to my worldview until I emerged from the cocoon of tree-climbing and wild-roaming childhood. I remember I joined the Job's Daughters because my friend was in it and my Dad was a Mason. They didn't admit Catholics (and we were, via my mother, though my Dad was not religious) but they let me in since I could play the piano and they needed someone to play for the secret services. I don't think the little girls were actually let in on any of the secrets. I wasn't anyway, and I didn't stay long. I know I understood that it wasn't okay to exclude Catholics and I was certainly aware of Civil Rights and the many movements, but not deeply. It was a safe and protected life of privilege, mostly characterized by striving to rise into the upper classes who lived around us and who were among my school friends. I knew I didn't belong, but I developed a superiority anyway, maybe in defensiveness. It centered around being smart, and nothing else. I was not good-looking with my buck teeth and weird hair so I never realized I had an attractiveness, and didn't use that for my purposes of being better than. Just smart. I had a high IQ, but not that high. I'm no genius. I still struggle with that humbleness though...that early programming is in really deep. I hope I show off less. I hope my inability to reach my potential has humanized me. I hope I can shake it long enough to accomplish a few things on my list though...a few more of my goals. Strike some kind of balance of being grateful enough for what I've been given and lucky to get, and what I need to give back. 

That's my goal, I guess, a balance. Nothing too amazing, just some kind of ordinary accomplishments. Maybe I'll start on some of them today. Or maybe I'll take just one more day of vacation and silence. It has been satisfying. I want more. Too bad I never got the woods that was supposed to surround my dream house, but I'm glad I have a good enough imagination to feel like I'm in it when I look out my windows.

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.