The Jell-O Art Show Show, not as it appeared.

Such a beautiful sunny day yesterday, keeping so many of my people in their gardens and back yards, or biking with their families, allowing them only brief moments inside, which may or may not have included dropping by MKAC for the few short moments that I have focused the last two or three months of my life upon. The gallery was filled, but maybe in my quest to keep the secrets of the My-i-electronic stew of the show covered tightly, I forgot to make sure you knew that this was something not to be missed. Even the little bit of repartee with Slug Queen Sadie was priceless and not graceless as I had feared. She's so wildly talented. 

I will try to deliver a pale substitute elixir, but those twenty minutes are here and gone now, as ephemeral as the wobbly items that graced the pedestals. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome something sublime:

iJell-O Script version #165b:

Here we are after 25 years of the Jell-O show, checking in with the Radar Angels as they make their Jell-O Art.         Let us go to their “site” and see what is streaming...

Picture that iconic album cover, loosely interpreted with a bit more fluff and glitter, including people with Jell-O on their heads, and shiny gold lame. (We missed you, Gil.)

We're Radar Angels one & only Lonely Facebook Band  

Stand back & let the evening jell...Bumpbumpbumpahdumppahdump

 Yes, the whole songs, with a band, maybe not quite the original lyrics, possibly a few more kazoos than the Beatles recorded. You might know how this goes from previous shows. The sight gags here involved oversize thumbs, from texting all our friends, you dig?

I’m going berserk, ( I ) just can’t communicate this way 

I’m going berserk, texting what it takes just a minute to say

Musical transitions occur between the five songs, leading you gently through our narrative. Comedy skits, written by the participants, attempt to connect you with what is coming next, not that you will feel prepared for these types of surprises. Soon you see three hot *girls* letting you know that

Friday night is Facebook time!

Rumbeando, escalada, try to keep up here as it goes viral. Likety like it!

Oh look, I’m a hottie-oh a lookie oh a lookie at me! Lookie at me!

Then prepare yourself for the ordinary disappointment which suffuses the virtual world. Unfriended by your second cousin in Louisiana. Not invited to the dang event! Sitting in your kitchen on Grinning Singles not finding anyone in your age group who looks the least bit appealing and is also not pretending not to be married. You have been there, and this you know because the entire audience responds with the most empathetic groans and moans to our heroes.

Will you “LIKE” me? (Thumbs up, then down.)

Will you be my “FRIEND”? (Thumbs up, then down) Would you like to have a loving “CHAT” with me? (You guessed it, no way.)
Must have been those velour pants, with the expectant junk (actually we didn’t even consider that sight gag, too obvious, not family friendly. We like a modicum of decorum. We used a tiny violin.) Anyhow, he can’t get a Real Connection.
They tried and they tried. You know this song and dance:

When I’m browsin’ on my phone

You know I’m feeling like I’m so alone

But I keep surfin’ more and more

I’m losin’ my imagination

Need some physical sensation

I can't get no, oh no no no.

Hey hey hey, that's what I say

Well, as you might imagine, we did have a compassionate and nonviolent response for him, poor fellow. Him and the hot girls, who also posted the mostest but still couldn’t get anything real. We responded the best way we could imagine, by feeling. Feeling gooey.

Hello humans,
Where ya goin?
Time to watch your flowers growing.
Time to touch, to dance, to be
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' gooey.
No me mails to read,
No you-tubes to view,
I am the real me and you are the real you
We are sharing our lovely gelatinous goo 

We love Jell-O

All is gooey. 

And then, as everyone begins to make Jell-O art in their aprons and wings, and the website for the Jell-O Connection loads, and we forget to use all the many carefully constructed and brilliantly designed props like a spinning hourglass, made by someone who had no clue how many things you can’t do in a 20-minute show, (*taking a curtsey here for the meticulous and clever set design and execution, however misguided and borderline obsessive*), and fog and bubble machines do get turned on, as far as I know, and:

Crickets and frogs begin to fill the swampy site with sounds. A fat frog who looks very little like Kermit steps up to the mic and appears to eat it, surrounded by fairies and elves. He/she warbled and croaked out this little ditty:

Why are there so many questions about art?

What’s on the artists’ minds?

Artists have visions, sometimes delusions

Art leaves you nothing to hide

Here on our website, we’re going to show you  (and here, not to be obtrusive, I must tell you that the fat frog stripped off his/her painfully and (borderline, whatever) cleverly constructed concealment to reveal, yes, you guessed it, The Queen of Jell-O Art herself! In costume! And let me tell you I had about six layers of costumes on...that was interesting.)

The Secrets of all Jell-O goo:

Today you can find it, the Jell-O Connection The artists, the Angels, and you. (She sang this, on the mic, in front of thousands, or dozens anyway, of our area’s finest art patrons and lovers of all things Jell-O. I know you sent your representatives to see this personal transformation, since after fifty or so years of saying this was something unimaginable, I became one of the *performing* Angels. But I’m interrupting her song)
We say that every wish can be made in Jell-O if you have the right recipe 
Here on our website, we have the apps you need, 
and we give our secrets FOR FREE!
It’s so amazing, the joy you’ll be raising, 
See what it has done for me! (Songwriters can get away with a little self-indulgence, if they are still in their first innocent year of queendom, so I put this line in, and took it out, and put it back in, with appropriate gestures. Apparently it worked.)

Today you can find it, the Jell-O Connection,

the Jiggle, the Angels, and You. (Repeat three times and hit those high notes, though not those ones in the soprano range that you wished you could hit like you did in the bathtub. Maybe next time.)

Big finish, as everyone steps in from wherever they were (your narrator had some peripheral vision problems, you might say, as she pretty much saw no one else, in her incredulity that she managed to finish her song with no tears or all those other unrealized fears, mostly by not looking at any of her loving fans in the audience or anyone else in the real world…)

We’re Radar Angels Lonely Facebook Band,

We hope you have enjoyed the show, etc. (Royal wave, the wrist action, etc. Remember to bow to the band, and yes, you do have to leave the beloved stage, new diva.)

Wild applause, a few tears, euphoria, many levels of gratitude all around. Take some pictures, pack up all of that Jell-O and those new artifacts for the Jell-O Art Museum, and go have a cast party. It's over. Sent into the Jellozone, never to be repeated, but legendary, and nowadays probably available online in a few weeks. You get 15 minutes plus, thanks to youTube, which only has 5 billion users or so. But that isn't all that interesting. Go check your Facebook.
 

We did more singing. We expressed our thanks and looked at our unbelievably cute pictures on a big screen. We went home and tried to sleep, and I can report that I cannot remember the last time I lay in bed, surprised to find a smile still on my face long past midnight. I’m still smiling, though I doubt I will be able to do a single productive thing today (Wait, what? This isn’t productive?)

You just have no idea how may blogs full of insights and powerful, life-changing realizations I could put here if any of us had the attention span necessary. I love being almost 63, and being able to say that I did something I never knew I would love so much as this, and feared so long as this.

Working in a group of highly creative, giving, brilliant individuals making something from thin air, germinating ideas, embellishing, discarding, being diplomatically critical, being dependable or not, committed in varying degrees, terrified, reluctant, exhilarated, satisfied, perfectionistic and realistic, and getting together repeatedly to focus on something so ephemeral, this is an amazing, and probably fairly common occurrence. Stepping out of the safe background into the maelstrom of risk, taking part, participating in something outside your own little world of safety, this is an everyday action.

Board and committee meetings are something like this, minus the singing and dancing maybe. School projects. Opening days of Saturday Markets. Every busker knows what I just learned. Laugh if you will at old people who state the obvious. Every learner is a curious, semi-aware newborn puppy at some point in their process.

Performers do this, playwrights, chefs, teachers, activists, students, parents, Jell-O artists, lots of people do this. I am happy to say that nothing in my life so far felt like a Radar Angels production, so fully engaging all of my talents and gifts and passions, filling my days and thoughts, leaving me so ecstatic. And yet, it is something so very unsubstantial, so unremarkable, so ordinary and insignificant to the larger worlds that go out from me in this kitchen with this old and clunky laptop. I get that. Do not feel guilty for missing my stage debut. Watch the video someday.

I am here to tell you that you already know the secrets of all Jell-O goo. You feel something, a fear perhaps. You are drawn to it, and repelled. You are terrified and intrigued. You are compelled, however long it takes, to move into it, and through it. You saw those Radar Angel-type people in your neighborhood, you wanted to join them, but you were not asked, or coddled, or that properly nurturing person in the interface did not see that you needed nurturing. I’m sorry. Do keep trying.

Fears are there to be conquered, though it matters not a bit to the larger world if you do so, except maybe on the grand scale of collective consciousness it does matter, a lot. Who knows?

Jell-O Art Show is over for this year. Next year is a very long time away, and a 26^th anniversary is not too significant. Fifty, now you’re talking, but that would make me 88, and that is a challenge I don’t have much control over. But I urge you to save the date. That one will be huge.

Thank you all, my fellow Angels, the ones who skipped this year as well, because you are still in it. You are here with me, humans, from frog to queen as if it were as easy as stripping off a converted Ducks graduation gown and a decorated baseball hat or two.

You’re all Queens, and Kings, fairies, whatever you want to be, because the secrets of all Jell-O goo are that there are no rules, no winners and losers, no criticism, no rejections, no judgments, no negativity or violence at all. That is the world we are making.

That is the world we are living in. That is the world we have chosen. We are so happy to share it.This world is collaborative. And gentle.

Time to stop trying to rewrite and describe something not describable, and uneditable.  I have to go cry it out now, and then scrape the Jell-O off my kitchen floor. There are a few things to do before next Saturday, my next public appearance. I hope if find it every bit as heart and soul-warming as I expect to. Maybe see you at that one. Love you.

Mwuah!

All at once!

So, so, way too busy. Jell-O Art Show in less than two weeks, then just a week to prepare for Opening Day of Saturday Market, with all of the attendant details that come with the family reunion that launching a community event will be. We have a huge family, because it includes every person who happens by as well as those who intend to be there. 

It is not easy to focus on any one thing, and I keep getting distracted with the upcoming future events of OCF, and of course, now, the wedding. I have been delegated to make some Jell-O Art for the bride and groom and of course I have an elaborate plan that I cannot begin. 

I also have a big and growing pile of work, the kind I make money from, which is a delightful change, although I don't quite know how I will fit it in. I am hilariously devoted to my highest priority, the Jell-O Art Show, and that is just the fact of my life. All else pales.

And anyway, I can't do much about most of the other things, and my living room is full of Jell-O, posterboard and markers, so I might as well keep doing it until it is finished. I don't want to drop too many things off the list, especially my own exhibit. So maybe sleeping and eating drop off the list...reading already has.

But I thought I would say hello. Market people, just keep working, and hope for good weather, but we will all be there whatever the weather for the first selling day in months. Try not to worry about things that aren't really in front of you. Whatever happens with the city and the county and the farmers and the developers and all of that, we will still do what we have done for over forty years (!) and show up with our handmade wares and our smiles. Those things will settle out around us and we will still be smiling, I am sure.

Country Fair seems like a big deal and it is...but again, it will roll on like it has for years and despite changes, will be dependably ours. Some things don't change as much as others. We love our *unique retro-hippie atmosphere* and will preserve it because it is us...I doubt I could really project much else at this point.

Except maybe *unique retro-hippie Jell-O Artist mother-of-the-groom* complexity. I'll still look the same, maybe more worried and more smiley. Dancing all the way....

Weddings and Lists

My son is getting married! I'm getting pretty excited about it, and had a laugh on myself yesterday when I noticed the visual representation of my response. We haven't even met to discuss their plans, and preferences, and ideas, and dreams, and what they actually want, but that didn't stop me from doing what is pictured here.

My dependable organized self started a list, with a calendar, and every little detail I could think of, in sort of priority order. With a big space at the bottom labeled "My role." None of these are filled in, because I am telling myself very strongly to keep quiet until asked! This is not about me! They get to design and choose the wedding they want.

My equally dependable creative self just drew out a monogram for them, practically without trying. Their first initials fit together unusually well. The two of them fit together unusually well, too. I think they will have a very successful and happy marriage.

And I'm sure their wedding will be perfect for them, and I will be able to juggle this desire to keep everything in neat lines and columns. I recognize this pattern of control, this desire to make sure everything in my life is neatly ordered and archived.

In all of my organizations, I quickly volunteer to chronicle their meetings, to take notes and compile them, to keep everything on paper and filed in an organized fashion. It's something that feels good to me. I presently take minutes for four groups, and have taken on that role in the Jell-O Art Show as well. It's not just that it feels good, it is that I have this skill set and am happy to offer it to those with whom I am trying to create something. All of them also feed my need to be visually creative, making things for them to sell, things for them to save, things for them to marvel over. I need to see things on paper, in the real world. I love words and letters and love translating ideas and events into clear language. I want to pin down all the details.

It's such a strong life pattern that I usually don't even notice it. It's just what I do. I don't resist it.

In the case of my son's wedding, however, I feel like I have done my work for now, and can now wait for them to express themselves in their fashion. I'm resisting as hard as I can all the emotional stuff surrounding weddings that I am sure it is my duty to impart and maintain. The traditions. The rituals. The trappings of convention and the thwarting of that.

I myself have never gotten married. I was in one 10-year-plus relationship, the one that generated this young man, but we didn't formalize that commitment with a public declaration. There was never a good reason in our minds, and looking back, I see that we didn't have the emotional commitment, though we are friends and all that. The situation was really more about me having a child, which of course I am extremely grateful that we did. We were good partners, but it never felt like we were really building a life together forever.

My son has been here to surprise and delight for 23 years, and this is just another delight. I don't really care about any of the details on that list. I just want them to mark the special day, to celebrate their special type of courage and dedication, and to have the wedding that makes them happy. Whatever I can do to make that happen, as easily as possible, I am here to do.

So I have a list. I expect other people have lists, or items to put on a list at least.I hope they do.

 They want to have their wedding at the Fair, which is a sweet tradition and perfect for them. They met through Culture Jam, an OCF program, and it is certainly part of their beings. John has been home at the Fair all of his life. It represents some of our happiest family times, and we feel very attached there.

Of course I am kind of busy at Fair, selling my wares, but I think I can fit this in. Because it is not my party, and I don't have to be responsible for all or even any of the things on this list (though no doubt I will be, for some.) And really it won't take that long, if we are organized and ready. I hope I will be free enough of work for that stretch of time that I can fully experience it, and concentrate on the joy, the beauty and promise of it, and pack a lot into that momentous occasion.

I'm mostly afraid it will be over too fast, and I'll miss it. I'll put my customers first and my drive to make money and keep that giant aspect of my life under control, and I'll fail to really live inside this happening. It's my only son's wedding. It's a big deal to me, on many levels. First thing I did was call my own Mom, and her advice was good.

But for now, it's just my job to think and feel and do what I need to do to prepare, so here we are. I write and draw and write about that. Since it isn't about me, I want to get all of my stuff out of the way, so I can concentrate on listening to them and hearing what they are willing to tell me. I have to strike some level of being maternal that will fit what they want and what they need. I get to provide something, but I don't yet know just what it will be.

But I do like something to look forward to. Weddings are the fun stuff. You get weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and funerals. We're having way too many funerals these days. It's no wonder I am so excited about this wedding. To Life!

Winter to...more winter

Tucked some pea plants into the garden...there's an act of faith. I planted starts as the little tiny slugs never let the sprouts get a start when I put in seeds, and I suspect the crows and jays watch me plant and then go collect the peas and beans. I'm so tired of cold.

One thing I notice as I start to slow down a bit, is that the house maintenance projects just start to get away from me. My list is more-or-less permanent and I'm avoiding the big ones like a plague. Maybe I know too much. The shop will need a total rebuild at some point, when it is ready to enter domesticity again. All of the plumbing needs washers and things...and I am my own handyman, so that can be a problem. There's too much for one person to do to keep a life going these days, so you have to have money to hire people to do for you, and there I bring up one of my main challenges, so let's change the subject.

House research has gone up a notch since someone hipped me to the Geneological Society research room. I found a five-volume set of Vaughan notebooks, and discovered a couple of excellent details. They might have the census records not available online, like the 1900 one that is illegible. I need that one.

I have come to the realization that what I want is intimacy with these predecesors of mine. I want to know little things about them, what they canned, what they sewed, how they talked to their families. I enjoyed finding out that the Davis family were devoted Quakers, a group that was often persecuted, which partially explains why they never engaged in killing native people, though they did help themselves to their camping grounds. I suppose people thought it was inevitable progress to use land that looked underutilized, to populate the powerful new nation that was such a huge romantic fantasy for them.

And there were slaves here, too, though most had been freed. There is a racist subtext to much of the local history, people avoiding the Civil War, people wanting it to come here, Columbia College being burnt down several times...I am afraid some of my Vaughans were not very tolerant people. It turns out that William Tyler Vaughan, our original settler, wandered off from his family and made a few trips here, earning the title of Captain Billy and heading a few wagon trains. He spent some time participating in gold mining, and some time at "Hangtown" participating in corrections...lynching people for various reasons, it seems. His wife Phoebe was revered for her long-suffering generosity and they saved a lot of people, too.

They named their sons after famous people, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy, George Washington, and even William Tell and Marquis Lafayette! That makes it not much of a mystery where Floyd got the idea to name one of his sons after the Bilyeu family. Floyd Governor was the one I'm interested in, their third son. I think he did the majority of farming while the two older sons ranged around with the Captain, going off to mine gold and adventure. They had at least 12 children.

I found out that his first wife, Angeline Baber, was blind, which helps explain why they had a housekeeper. Miranda Freeze Haskett had four children when she married Floyd after the buggy accident that killed Angeline. I can't find out anything about what happened to her husband, and I speculate that her infant twins could have been fathered by Floyd G. If there was a scandal, there might be a record of it, but all of the pioneers made practical decisions about life and death all of the time. You certainly couldn't make it alone in those days, but many women were as good as alone when the men went off to prove up or get in on the gold rush. I'm sure it was no picnic to be a kid then, either.

Have to rush off but be assured that I am hot on the trail of the most intimate, heart-warming details available about the lives of these women and children and decorators and builders. I am bringing everything old into my heart and turning it over to see if someoen scrawled "I was here" on it in fading pencil lines.

I'm finding my own gold. I'm not likely to bury it in the yard under the peas. Somehow, I am going to make it relevant to my life, wrap it in the words I love to manipulate, and polish it up.

Just waiting for the sun to come out...and the strawberries, the perennials, the new bird-planted trees I have to unplant. I have a bird nesting in the wreath I made of sticks on the front porch...I think it might be a towhee. I'll have to find a way to watch it, and watch for eggs. Guess that's one holiday decoration that will stay up for a bit longer.

A Few Winter Days

 Two weeks of icy fog kept me indoors and waiting for sun, but my cat Jake appreciated my presence. He had moved onto my bathroom counter next to the sink in his instinctually helpful way...it was not his first desire, which was to hide out someplace dark, but it was good to have a way to pet him every few minutes, to check in with him while I tried to figure out when to make the call to the vet. He wasn't going to improve, though he still had lots of good days. He nestled in towels and slept. I combed him and helped him keep clean, and he had his mixed feelings about me, for sure. I tried as hard as I could to honor him.

I started this post while waiting for the vet to arrive to help me figure out if Jake needed to be set to run one of his other lives...I was being all clinical and coldish about it, because I have been on this edge of a decision for two years now. He had a tumor...but he still purred, he still ate. He obviously had a headache, at least, but he would still jump up on the counter. These God-decisions are really hard, as you probably know.

The previous day was my son's 23rd birthday, a day of many memories for me, a mark on the calendar, but a quiet day. I do so remember being that age and so bent on my own life that not many other people mattered very much. They did on an emotional level, but that had to get pushed aside to make my way forward into the work I had to do. So the two days, the birth day and the death day, connected for me in deep  emotion, the kind that is mostly set aside while we do the work of separation and putting our lives in order.

I sent him the $23 check in a ritual my mother used to follow, a dollar for every year. I like it, even though I know checks are annoying to him, demanding a trip to a bank and all. I like the marking of the passing of time, just a little more each year, just a bit of a raise. I think when I hit 50 the increasing stopped, or jumped to a bigger round number. Of course at this age I don't want to take money from my mom (she's 87, or will be tomorrow) but somehow birthdays are still important. I like passing a ritual down from Mom.

Spent another day at the County Deeds and Records office yesterday running down details about my property. It's a satisfying mystery that holds onto its details tightly, and I may never pin some of them down. I did discover the exciting fact that my property was connected to the one on the corner for a long time, leading me to speculate about the builder of that one too. Wish I could take it apart and look inside the walls....

But I can't. You can't go back in time, either, and I spend a lot of time wishing I were really witnessing the farming era in this neighborhood, the cows, the horses and sheep. When the Lane County Fair is here I sometimes wake up to lowing in the morning...I like the sounds of cows. My Mom's family were farmers and homesteaders in Nebraska, and in that way have some in common with these people I am researching.

The Vaughans and Huddlestons farmed partly because that was the main work available in the early years of settlement of this area. Many of them no doubt came here for the free land and the opportunity to make a living with their skills. Perhaps some were not even skilled as farmers, but just had the broad range of handy abilities that people used to gain as a matter of course: the use of tools, working with wood, using nature to one's advantage. They had to farm to feed themselves and their children and hired laborers, as there were no cities nearby at all in the beginning. 

And they had a lot of kids, out of necessity and preference, and needed land to set their sons up, and their daughter's husbands, (the daughters by default) and in the case of the families I am studying, the widows needed homes too. Most of the men in these families died rather young, but the widows all reached advanced ages, spending decades living with their daughters and sons.

One of the theories I'm exploring is that one of those widows lived here, and put up that Greek or Gothic Revival wallpaper I'm so fond of. She probably bought it here, or ordered it through San Francisco. I doubt they brought rolls of wallpaper in the covered wagons, though they might have brought doors or at least door hardware. There were lumber mills here right away and sash and door manufacturers, so most likely all the woodwork was milled here. There was a glass factory in Coburg at one time, but the quality was reportedly weak and they closed, and likely they didn't make window glass. The one-over-one windows I have are not as old as the original construction, I don't think, and I read that large glass panes weren't available until the mid-1800's, so I think the windows may have been replaced. I kept them when I remodeled, so I may be able to glean a little more information from them. I know the "horns" that projected down from the top sash are still found on lots of houses in Eugene. These were to strengthen the glass, and as windy and stormy as it gets here, it makes sense that so many would have been used. Some sash and door manufacturer probably dominated the market here during the main bulding era of the early 20th century, but a lot of the glass had to be imported, in some cases around Cape Horn. Mine looks pretty old, but that's pretty darn imprecise.

Huddleston's first work here was a trading post he opened in part of Skinner's cabin, which later became a bigger store that he located right on the east bank landing by the first (Skinner's) ferry. That is likely where he got the money to buy so many parcels of land, that and some gold mining he did in Yreka shortly after he arrived here in 1850 . Lots of men got caught up  in gold fever and left their families to try mining, though he was single, not marrying until 1853. At any rate he was rather wealthy, and his widow Samantha made her living selling off the many properties they accumulated when the price was cheap or free. She paid a lot of taxes. Her house was first the Mims house at 330 High (built in 1867), which was in the fashionable district at the time, and then they moved to the northern part of their DLC, at around 8th and Madison. Yesterday I found a big Black Cottonwood almost identical to the one that was cut down on Tyler, right on Madison near 8th. Now they are Huddleston trees for me, for sure. Their house down there is probably gone, though I may get around to investgating that. I don't believe they ever lived on the Fairgrounds part of their property, but it is entirely possible that one of the widows did, for a time, Samantha, or her mother, Catherine Davis. Most likely it was Miranda Vaughan, some other member of the Vaughans, or just some hired help.

This little strip my house sits on was in between some of the DLCs, (called Meets and Bounds) and was probably just absorbed by Huddleston. I know he sold it to Vaughan. Most of the sales of my property were for $10. It was only $23,000 when I bought it in 1988. Most of the sales were to relatives. Yesterday I found another relationship by searching the records, and that's one reason things are hard to trace. When you gave your son or daughter a house, or some pasture, you might not record it right away, or at all. If you were a farmer, you certainly might use or lease grazing land or hay fields if they were available, and many of the recorded arrangements sound like just a step up from a handshake. 

I'm quite sure Bilyeu Vaughan was named after Lark Bilyeu, or his family. Mr. Bilyeu was a lawyer and notary who signed most of the transactions recorded by the Vaughans. He owned a strip of land just to the south of Huddleston's DLC. Perhaps Miranda Vaughan just liked the name, as a variant of William, but I'm guessing some honoring or gratitude was mixed in there. Quite likely Lark Bilyeu gave Vaughan a lot of advice or help in his own quest to amass land for his family when they moved from Willamette Forks (Coburg) to west Eugene.

And it seems quite possible that Bilyeu did build this house, and maybe the one next door. His name is on my board. He and his brother-in-law, Grace's husband Frank Bowers, are both there, with the 1916 date. I'm as certain as I can be that he remodeled it in 1916, changing the look from Gothic Revival to Victorian, paneling the interior of the back part with the tongue-in-groove, and covering the wallpaper with Victorian florals. Miranda and Grace picked out the wallpaper, in my fantasy. And Miranda Vaughan could have certainly lived here.

But each new detail brings another little mystery. Good thing I'm enjoying the research, and the weather isn't making me feel compelled to prune my little fruit orchard. There seems to be an almost endless search out there, and it seems important to do it.

Truthfully, I see my control patterns in my desire to pin down and document every tiny detail, in the hope that it will fill out the full picture. It's better than a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle, with some of the pieces lost under the piano. While living in the past is feeding my sense of loss and regret for things unrecorded and forgotten, it's grounding me in what's important in the present, and increasing exponentially my love for this piece of land. 

Family relationships, vital. Writing things down, essential. Continuing relationships through the generations, more important than you might think. And I did put down my cat, sadly, and added his grave to the other pet graves on  my little homestead. They're unmarked, except for stones, the foundation stones I took out of this house. Unlike ancestors, cats aren't that important, and their lives are brief, but learning comes from many directions, and my cat taught me about patience and suffering and the farmers' way of thinking. You nurture as well as you can, and then you let go, providing if you are able, and being provided for if you aren't. 

And little old ladies, living alone, feature strongly in my house drama. I'm just the latest one, and ironically the one who did the most damage to the legacy of the house, notwithstanding the fact that I gave it another fifty years or so of life. Writing the book about these people in all their insignificance will project us all a little farther into the next generations, though not much. Not many people will care like I do. 

But I'm glad I do care. Thanks, Jake, for your responsiveness, even the bitey kind. Thanks Mom, for the little growing checks on my birthday, and thanks, son, for being the best part of my life by far. And thank you everyone who wrote something down, most especially those guys who put that board in my wall. Someday someone will take the boards down and find my name, perhaps, and maybe then when they google me (though it will be called something else) they will find something interesting. I'll try.

And by the time my son pays me $10 for this property, he will own something of great relative value, thanks to all the countless other dead and living people who invested their own lives in their real estate surrounding mine. So thanks, Mike, for picking out this property and planting the seeds of revival. It wasn't the property I wanted, but now I see how perfect it is for me. 

Everybody needs a place to bury their cat, and to dig up old treasures. Sometime in the last 25 years here, I found a horseshoe. In my fantasy it was from the horse of Catharine Davis, a horse reputedly the fastest in Lane County in the 1860s. That's right. It's a priceless horseshoe.

Holding chaos at bay

Have felt compelled to write but there are so many subjects pressing to be addressed that I have preferred to keep quiet...but obviously I am coming out of it now. This is typical of my winter process. The freeing-up of Saturdays from retailing just allows such ease, that it takes a few weeks to figure out where to apply the energies. 

Certainly I clean the house and organize my receipts and bills and such for taxes, and little by little I sort my inventory and make a plan for the coming season. I eat better and exercise more and read and reflect and go to meetings and type up minutes. I watch myself for signs of irrationality and obsessiveness and laugh at how much of it I can find.

My foot is healed and now I am concentrating on walking a lot, stretching and massaging and trying to build the muscles back up and the scar tissue down. Instead of biking I am walking everywhere, and that is good, lots of thinking time and looking at all of the houses and working out my house book.

Researching the property is still my main obsession and I'm getting somewhere, but opening up new mysteries all of the time. Last night I wondered when my clawfoot tub probably appeared. There had to be indoor plumbing, and that was most likely achieved in the 1916 remodel, though no permit was ever taken out on the plumbing until I got here. With each mystery comes a raft of new areas to explore and new puzzles to solve. 

I spent another day in Deeds and Records and I so love looking through those old books from the beginning...all the way back to 1855! All handwritten in those days of course, and some almost illegible. My skill at reading handwriting is a good one for these challenges. It's even harder to decipher the stuff on microfiche, and I'm researching a few too many people at this point, so I will be spending a few more of these cold foggy days down at the County building. 

Most of my house people disappear rather early on, especially the Davises who came in 1847 or something. The Huddlestons lasted longer, because Samantha sold off a lot of properties in the early 1900's after they platted up their DLC and her husband died. Her son Henry C. is there, but predictably I am much more interested in the women than the men. I am sure that will be essential for the book. We all know that women had to use a lot of special powers to hold their own in those days, and fortunately for me, a lot of the owners of my property were women. So I'm studying Catherine S. Davis (1811-1898), her daughter Samantha A. Davis Huddleston (1836-1926), Miranda J. Freeze Haskett Vaughan (1854-1932), her daughter Grace Edna Vaughan Bowers (1886-1989), and the subsequent owners of my house Tillie Van Harken (1864-1942), Alma M. Goddard (1910-1995) and Theodosia E. Calloway (1875-1954).

Those are the principal players in my drama. Plus me, of course, the one who took apart their work and took them on as my house family. I have to study their husbands because history is mostly about men, it seems, but some of these women did own the property in their names, and some of them did the actual work themselves, at least might have. They made the decisions about the decorating, at the very least. 

I located and copied some of the original land transactions, but still haven't determined when my house was built and put on the property rolls. There is a lot to look for. Navigating the records is tricky until you get familiar with the systems. I really love looking at the books and plat maps and feeling the hands of the real individuals who lived before me. Yes, I am irrationally attached to these folks. It's a wonderful one-way affair (my favorite kind, if the  history of my own obsessions were written....)

I managed to organize my research into some notebooks and a lovely portfolio, since the box of papers was unwieldy and tough to utilize. I'm putting my writing and my Jell-O energy into the project but that may change as the Radar Angels are meeting tomorrow for brainstorming and the initial stages of this year's fabulous Jell-O Art Show. I have to step up: I'm the Queen!

My long walks are filled with looking at foundations, rotting sills and window details of the many old houses in Eugene. I'm glad I don't look like the type of person likely to break into houses because I'm sure my over-curious stares are unusual. Don't worry, I'm not looking at your stuff, just the wood and carpentry of your walls and porches. I'm learning so much about vernacular architecture, which of course just deepens the mysteries since people vary so much in the way they do things. A major theme of the writing I expect...there is no one way to do this stuff, build houses, plant gardens, all of it. Plus we all respond to the conditions we are under: poverty, abundance, necessity, whimsy, death and partnership and family.

I am unable to cut down the growing bay trees in my yard because I have convinced myself that Grace Bowers and her mother planted the first one and all of the subsequent seedlings connect to that. I peer into Grace's former backyards and wish there was more evidence. The giant Black Cottonwood down the street was quite likely planted by either the Vaughans or the Huddlestons, but it was cut down and chipped up while I was away and no body counted the rings. Tragic in my view, but I should have made sure it happened. I expected the stump to be there when I returned...like all the other stumps always are. This one got chipped up, but I still hope someone counted. They theorized 80 years, but I think it could even have been a survivor of the pre-settlement area. And it burns me to know that Grace was still living when I bought this house. My neighbors even remember her, but of course didn't talk about the things I want to know. Yes, irrational. 

But I'm learning realism too...discarding theories left and right as I look at more traceable facts. I'm not going to cut down my apple tree to find out, but now I'm guessing that it can't be 150 years old...though it is planted a bit close to the houses, it is doubtful that it predates them. The lockset from the 1850's was original to the door but more likely the door was not original to the house. I think Alma or Tillie or Grace did some "period" decorating as the house went through its changes. So much speculation. I look forward to looking up enough details so I have a more coherent narrative.

And I will have it. I'm on the verge of just starting to write, to relieve the pressure if nothing else. It would be cool to get the book out in time for the 100th anniversary of my board dated 1916...so that is kind of a goal now. Right on track if I don't stop working.

So that's where I am in general, rather dull and hermit-like and loving every minute of it. I think I have mentally retired, just not physically yet. I just want to work on what I want to work on. Barring any more stupid medical crises, I plan on having a smooth-sailing year of productive creativity and mental ease.  

 Plans, laughable. A year ago as I pruned trees and walked to cemetaries, I was just about in this same mental space. Had to do some other things, as it turned out. Guess we'll see how it all goes, one halting step at a time. Just no falling down, Diane, no falling down.

Immersed

Fully into the middle of the Holiday Market now, loving it and being exhausted by it. It always surprises me how hard it is to dress up and smile for two days in a row...sometimes it goes quickly and other times I get bored with it. Little things start to bother me.

Things are normal at the Market, normal for the indoors scene. We weathered the break-in situation very well. I've never been so glad I fully packed up and hauled my stock and didn't have a single valuable thing to worry about, unless someone thinks pushpins and duct tape are valuable. That's all relative I guess. You never want to feel too safe or too complacent.

I did have to adjust my behavior to fit, though. I got a little paranoid that there was hatred being shown toward us, but as others pointed out, indications were that the paranoia was a lot more destructive. Our enemies are truly within.

When we go indoors our worst tendency is to point too many focused beams on our group and personal dynamics and lose the focus we are there to maintain. This fancy retailing we are doing is our work, the work we need to do to get through the winter without Markets. We need to support each other, not be selfish or competitive, and help each one of us shine our brightest for the next two weeks. It's essential that we be at our best.

We get scared when we see that the success of the Market might be leaving us behind. I watch Levana sell pair after pair of tie-dye underpants and I envy her...and sell another tote bag. I have my niche, as we all do, and its popularity wanes and peaks. Nobody can sell consistently well every Market day in every Market season. Just do your best and keep working to improve.

Presentation is my particular challenge, and I struggle constantly with balancing what I want to sell with what people want to buy. People-pleasing can be a tough character trait in retail. I had my shelves trimmed down to be quite manageable but one person wanted one of that old design I'm trying to phase out, so I brought those back. And someone else asked for that little item, so I brought ten of them. At least I learned that as fun as the Jell-O Art is, it distracts customers from the work I brought to sell. 

I wore my Queen outfit for favorite color day, since my favorite color is Jell-O. Although I looked adorable it confused a customer or two. We have to remember  that sometimes our culture doesn't include the customers, and they get frightened by us. The fashion days have been fairly well-integrated but some other aspects of our culture aren't meshing that well with the culture the customers are coming out of, to visit us.

One mistake we so frequently make is downloading our complaints and irrationality on the public, either by intention or by accident. Complaining on Facebook is fairly common and I always wonder what people are thinking. Do we want all of our friends and whichever random public people see our posts to think sales are bad at the Holiday Market and that we feel unappreciated and disappointed? I don't. Pity sales don't happen, or I would have gotten a lot more of them with my booted-up foot. Presentation doesn't just include the booth, and it isn't just for the weekend days we are there. Be brave enough to hope, and keep hoping. Be positive!

One thing I do recognize is that bad-tempered complaining vendors don't succeed. People come attracted to your "juice" and the more of it you share, the more they want. They want to be part of your success, not part of, or even responsible for your failure. They want a happy interaction in which they get lots of value for their money. Even if they are just looking. 

And your issues may not be anyone else's issues. Someone posted recently about their intolerance for children's behaviors; we've all worried when rambunctious young people enter our carefully controlled space. But remember that many people have children, take them places, and in fact feel invited to our Market. Some of us sell toys and clothing for them! Complaining about children in our space is as pointless as complaining about couples or about men, or about people who enjoy bad jokes. 

Everyone is welcome at our public gathering. We have a most special place on the weekends, a place people meet their friends and families, by accident or design, and the warmth and joy of that gathering is very precious and has nothing to do with commerce. I find the children delightful, and actually enjoy distracting them so their parents can shop. I have a harder time with the bad jokes, but it is not about me.

Let me shout: IT IS NOT ABOUT ME! So, so much of what is going on in the world has very little to do with me and what I want and what I fear. I find it particularly important to work out my fears before I bring them to others.

It was destructive for me to be thinking paranoid thoughts about whomever disturbed our space. It wasn't going to improve the situation, so I checked myself and reframed. I hope it didn't spread too far.

Please think about what you are saying during the duller moments of the Holiday Market, when you are wishing for customers and watching your neighbors and the aisles. Do you have questions about the Board, or about the Kareng Fund Board? Why not ask one of the people who sits at the table during those meetings, rather than just spread your fears around? You might find easy reassurance in a short conversation. Feel like the HM committee made a wrong decision? Go to the evaluation meeting and join the committee to make the decisions with the group instead of second-guessing them. 

Our organization is so transparent you'd be surprised how easy it is to find out the facts to support your view or see another. People are very willing to talk details or philosophy or process or vision, but that is what we do at meetings. We can't do it during the selling day, at least in a complete, fair manner. At Holiday Market, or on any given Saturday on the Park Blocks, we gather, but some of our most important work has to wait to be done during the week. 

There is a long personal journey to be taken between "us" and "them." I've been working on this in recent years with my role at OCF, where I often heard myself use the clanging dissonant term of "them." Clearly it was often a hidden, frustrated desire to be "us" or at the least, to feel like "us."

I've been "us" at the Saturday Market since I served on the Board in the late seventies and early eighties, and in fact was just reminiscing about when "we" started the New Holiday Market in around 1987 or 1988. Clare Feighan was the manager, and she and assistant manager Margo Schaeffer called all over the place to find a venue for us to get us indoors in December. We first landed reluctantly in the old quonset building, but the first New Holiday Market was one weekend in December. One weekend, in which we all made the same amount of money we had made the previous year in six weeks on the Park Blocks.

This was a revelation! Things didn't always happen the way we expected. We took the plunge and landed in the big room where we are now, and you can believe there were many who were not happy about it. It was a huge stretch in our self-concept, but look how right we were. 

There are always people, thank goodness, who have vision and wisdom and experience and are willing to participate, as a group, to guide us down our river (sometimes even upstream) to where we need to go. It is never easy. That is why we don't do much as individuals in the structure of our organization. We sit at a big round table, usually filling it with ten to fifteen people,  and we make the decisions together. We sometimes take a very long time to do it. Sometimes we might have been working on a particular issue for years, and you might just hear about the last part, and feel it was rushed. Generally we do not like to rush.

So next time you hear yourself saying some small thing that comes from your fears or your disappointment or your personal list of grievances, think about the rest of us, about the forty-three years of hard work many people have stretched themselves and their lives to accomplish, and re-establish your respect. Think about those who are selling for the first time, or their first few years, and think about the impression you might give them. Think about those in the public who know little about us. 

Leave them with the right impression, that of your best self. Be your favorite color, be in our rainbow. As Beth likes to say, you're in the basket. I love that. Stay in the basket. It's nice and cozy, and we can all fit. Just be extra kind, because some of us can get a little tender, especially in the last two weeks before Christmas.