Make Time to Be Vulnerable

 The reason I took a break from this writing was that the pandemic and all that was happening at the time made me just too vulnerable. I was being bullied, I was afraid of dying from getting Covid, and all of my routines and work devolved into many hours and days of reading books on the deck. I observed constantly and wrote in my journal and wrote posts in my mind, but was mostly just afraid to speak. 

My organizations were dying, not able to have our events and not able to meet in person. It was still during the previous administration, so politics were still traumatizing, worse even. The elderly and disabled were being sacrificed and there was so much suffering. I was guilty of being happy to be able to stay home alone and read. It was a joyous vacation made possible by unbelievable suffering by others. So my words were not feeling useful. I ate them with the sourdough and vegan ice cream.

I noticed while trying to find my blog today that not only is there a drag queen using the name, but it's a pretty religious term that of course I have ignored. What I mean by divine tension is an illustration by Nancy Bright I treasure of a woman balancing on a thread of spider silk...ready to plummet off for telling the truth as she sees it. Balanced, though. Fearless of the consequences, as her dress shreds and falls away. Kind of me...but kind of not. My aspiration.

I'm listening to a podcast, not even able to finish listening before being driven to speak. You can hear it too: https://anchor.fm/ayisha-elliott/episodes/How-Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion-DIED-e1ningb?fbclid=IwAR2sdJvaG9b1dTB5fTVHgyL5GMjdPhCWCA0sutN313QATNkGhFPB_qsgE_k

I'm not posting it on FB, where things are too toxic still. People there, even my own friends, don't deserve my help in finding these truths. People, even my own friends, need to step up and do their own work. I have a lot to do on my list. But I am glad I arranged my day around this group conversation by people I have so much love and respect for. They got bullied far more than I did, and they can still laugh. They drew their boundaries and then kept going. They're willing to tell the truth. And so must I be. So since this was my main way to do that, I'll come back. We'll see how it goes.

Market has become no fun for me in the last year, for a lot of reasons, but yesterday the Jesus parade of signs and yellers with megaphones camped out on my corner and the other corners of our intersection and it made an unbearable day so much worse. It was raining ash yesterday. It wasn't really smart to be there, but I had just fought at a meeting for us to honor our commitment to be open, for the community as well as for ourselves and each other, in a general way, and now here was a specific way for me to again, show up. So I had to pack my ice water and go. I wore my mask as I have continued to do for so many markets now (all of them since June 2000.) And when the righteous people yelled I did two things, besides trying to ignore them: I put up my performative sign that says "End white supremacy culture" right on the front of my booth, because obviously that kind of X-tianity is WSC, even though I have not been putting up my performative sign, because it's performative. The second thing I did was I went over to the woman who plays mandolin with all of her heart and soul and put $20 in her case (even though I had already tipped her because she is my favorite busker and I am into keeping her alive and well) and thanked her for stepping up and taking her space as she did right as they were occupying our corner. She played and sang True Colors and she kept playing and singing and then another two musicians did the same. And I tipped them as well. Performatively and for real.

So listening to this podcast, which was people I know who were speaking truth so hard, I felt ashamed, of my complicity in hiding out in the face of shocking atrocity, and for keeping comfortable in a time when all of our lives are on the line. I can hardly call myself an activist anymore...I get too triggered to do public activism. I do quiet stuff. I make plans of things I could be doing. I try to spend some of my money on things other people are doing. I try to fight inside these orgs to help us be upright and do the right things. I lose heart mostly every morning and build it back in my journal.

I didn't go to Fair this year, mostly for safety because I would for sure have gotten Covid, but also because I was ashamed of it. It should not have been held. I heard the spin and obfuscation and I did some of my jobs, and supported other crafters, but I blew off that income and burnt some bridges. I'm glad I did. I truly do not know at this time if I will go back. My illusions were never very strong about the bullshit family stuff and all that so-called magic, as I have seen pretty much all of it over the years and I know who the good people are and who they are not. I have seen through all of the curtains. These last years have been really toxic though, since the bullies were empowered.

We have had some bullying at the Market, and I have fought it in my position as an officer, and mostly we have been able to disarm the bullies by either getting them to resign their positions or by the good luck of them going elsewhere with their bad habits. Some are still in place, and their habits have been adopted by others, but I can still fight it fairly effectively there. I get to guide the Board, I can speak to the offenders with a bit of positional power, and I can just endure some of it until it dissipates, because I know I have strong ethics and integrity and I work from my values and rarely use that type of tactics or behaviors to get things to go in what I believe is an ethical and coherent direction. I make mistakes, but I do not think I was ever wrong in working to get rid of the bullies. I stood strong in the group and led from within. It's always hard, and I shed a lot of tears and process a lot of anger, but I know what is right and what is not. And I am very clear on what is bullying and how to fight it. Not that I succeed in every case, because some people just learn to keep it out of my sight. Bullies tend to have skills in brainwashing followers.

But Fair is another thing altogether. The number of bullies who are now in power seems unassailable. Out of the people who are running for the Board, I can support three of them: Lucy Kingsley, Ann Rogers, and Katy Parker. All of them talk about service, which is maybe number one on my list of qualifications. There are two men I don't know, whom I might take a chance on, maybe after more research. I always learn a lot from their physical presence on the forum recordings. But all the rest of the candidates are known bullies or in support of known bullies. I am sorry to have to say that. None of them will make a positive contribution to the organization, in my view. That's a lot of people to reject. It doesn't give me a lot of hope. They don't admit to that in their statements, but for me and my bullshit filter, talking about the family, the magic, the love and the party are bullshit gaslighting. Those things are toxic. 

The org has alienated my son's generation to the extent that maybe none of them will ever go back. My generation is reaching the end of our abilities to make and sell there. Lots of the people in between have now seen the worst, and are no longer willing to overwork and bully themselves for an ideal that has been shown to be cardboard. Thin cardboard, very prettily painted. It got blown down in the pandemic and not many people I know want to prop it back up. 

The white supremacy culture lives there in the worst ways. Now you can't even talk about it. There's way more denial that willingness to work. With the recorded meetings that can be viewed by bullying Board members, my committee has not had a productive conversation about cultural appropriation, something our committee has to initiate, without the benefit of any diversity professionals since they won't be coming back to help. Some still care, but why attempt it? Even if I hire them myself, which I have been tempted to do, no action will come of it as any guideline we attempt to write will not make it past the Board. Unless maybe some of the bullies are gone. Not that they have to be Board members, since the process is now about who can tarnish the hardest, and who can drive the false narratives. 

Market is not off the hook in diversity issues. I was able to make it part of the performance, along with trying to find someone multilingual to address some cultural accessibility, but it wasn't really part of any end results. I volunteered to speak about equity to the Board, but when I tried to speak about so many tiny parts of that in the past, it was just so obvious that most people at the table had not had time to do any self-education on the issues, that I know my best bet is to stick to things that are relatable, like our internal member equity issues like who gets favored in our fee structure and who gets the benefits of our wonky map with it's bonus spaces and things like shade. We're going to have a fee increase this winter, and once again I will try to explain what regressive structure means and options to make sure the successful pay more and the less successful pay less. I've done this the last two or three times to no result. "Everyone has to pay their dues," "We've all had to learn how to build our businesses," and so on. Bootstrap stuff. We profess equality as one of our tenets but equity? It's going to be my job to just start that conversation. In 2022. I figure I can talk about shoes. Everyone gets a pair of shoes. Doesn't it work better if everyone gets the pair of shoes that fits them? Or like, one shoe and one wheel? We all know how much of that I can get done in the Board Educational Minute. But I will sure try. I will absolutely use the minute to suggest that when we can figure out if we have any money or not, we put some aside for an introductory training. Because we are going to have to start at the very beginning. Dough, ray, me me me. 

I'm not really going to vent about the things that are really bothering me today. This is already too long and I've done my morning processing to get myself to the position I do every day, to a place of patience and tolerance and giving things a chance to get better so I won't have to let my rage and deep disappointment out to undermine my message. I've begun to believe it is idealistic to hold people to high ethical and relational standards. Maybe I just start putting books on the table for people to read and let some of it go. Read Ibram X. Kendi, damnit. Read Mediocre, or anything by Ijeoma Oluo. All of hers. Read one book. Read one article. What have you been doing all through the pandemic? Watching Netflix? Right, I knew that. 

Watch Henry Louis Gates then. Listen to Michelle Obama. Surely you have time for her. Somebody. Even Ellen is better than no one. 

I'm being mean I guess. Probably a lot of my readers have read these writers, probably one or two of my Board members have as well. We just haven't talked about it yet. Maybe when we get finished putting out the fires started by the liars and bullies who were willing to take my orgs to the ground we can talk about books and ideas. Maybe the fires will get put out. But at my house, at my booth, the sun is still a lovely but deadly shade of hot fuschia pink. And I'm still standing in the ash fall, looking around to see if I have any friends in there with me. If so, thank you, and some day we'll kiss and hug.

By the way, one of the most beautiful moments I saw yesterday, which hardly anyone else saw, was a couple of young women who stood behind the X-tians with their fetus signs and bullhorn, and kissed. Just a simple, regular kiss like they give each other every day. That's the moment my heart filled up and my eyes stopped burning. I took a drink of water, and there was still some ice.  

 

Vague-Posting Until I Can't Help Myself

 A couple of things were introduced to me this week that I shouldn't talk about. Eventually all will be revealed but they're still percolating and it might be unhelpful to just rant about them. Some I can start with though.

We've been having family zooms every other Friday and mostly I love them. I have three sisters and a brother in widespread locations and one sister goes to my Mom's and helps her get online. She doesn't say much but we all love looking at each other and it has helped our family dynamics in many ways. I continue to find things out to work on, some enriching and some distressing, but that's how it always is with family gatherings, and I've learned to value all of it (eventually.) Yesterday I happened to remember to ask my older sister if she discovered any slavery in our ancestry, since we had McWhorter relatives in Virginia, South Carolina and Kentucky, and there is a large community of Black McWhorters including a man called Free Frank who got himself and his family free enough to form a town in Indiana (I think) when it was the frontier. He's somewhat famous due to a book about him and a Time Travel show on PBS. Anyway not only were there enslaved people but we are actually distant cousins to Free Frank. I plan to dig up the census data to get more firsthand knowledge of that. [Edit: I did, and apparently after the 1790 census, no more enslved people were owned.We can only guess why, or why they thought it was acceptable in the first place.] It's one of those things I thought about abstractly but now it's way more real.

I have been reading so many books about racism and ableism and other isms so I can have way more meaningful context to move through my own internal racism and sexism and ableism and white supremacy and it does help. Ibram X. Kendi is really laying things out clearly for me, and I'm finding plenty of resources that I am grateful to use. It's weird to know that most of them were around for quite awhile and my interest was just not sparked...that's privilege, to not have to be interested in what is taking the lives of so many and working against so much that I believe in. So, taking down the barriers of my privilege, and it's a big job. Amber Ruffin is delightful and serious and I am grateful for the moments of almost-laughter that she provides. All of the books are valuable and fascinating.

Being a joyful warrior like Kamala Harris is a goal. It's serious business but some of it does feel good or could if I felt I had done enough work to deserve some leeway. I'm not there yet. I'm still a selfish person working on learning to share and trust. I don't like people most of the time and that is a fatal flaw apparently that ensures I will die alone and destitute but I'm just doing the best I can with that.

I don't fit that well into my family on a lot of fronts, which is painful at times but just the way it is. I have had to learn to not say judgey things when they talk about their lives and choices which are different from mine and they don't actively judge me either, but we often kind of give the side-eye on some subjects. Apparently I am obsessive or fanatic about how to do the right thing for climate issues and politics and even self-preservation in some ways...because I have never held money in high enough regard to accumulate a lot of it or spend what I do have in the socially acceptable ways taken for granted by what could be called the mainstream society. And I'm single and that's not gonna change.

I expect that "mainstream/alternative" is also a false construct that divides people as there is realistically a gigantic spectrum of choices and I am just on it somewhere, probably closer to them than I think. I once thought about what I would do if I did have a lot more money and some of it was things like having a bigger house and a newer car and the regular stuff. Old-age security. Actual health care I would use. But anyway, I am the hippie and I'm not changing that and I just have to work out my boundaries and their boundaries and keep us all in the middle of the nice meadow where we can all picnic without fighting about it. Completely possible, and something that gets easier as we continue asking about each other's lives. Just don't put cheese in everything. I enjoy not having a continually runny nose like I did for three-quarters of my life. I'm allegic to dairy.

One thing I cannot talk about yet is how the Market season will go this year, with the Farmers in a transition spot while the Butterfly lot disappears and is transformed. You'll all find out soon enough what will happen and it isn't my job to tell you. Suffice it to say I expect my tote bag sales will tank and let's hope that is just a negative projection that doesn't turn out to be true. I am worried about the odd/even days, as last year I was able to come every week and this year with people coming back I might not be able to do that. I can't even deal with the thought of selling only every other week. I guess the best strategy is to allow that it is a possibility, and might even have an upside, and try not to make predicitons about what hasn't been decided yet. Maybe we can go to 75% usage of our space and that will help. At the same time I am dreading the stress and hard physical work of selling outdoors. Having Saturdays off is very pleasing to me.

I am missing attending the Jell-O Art show for the first time in 30-some years, and that is hard, but I need to be at Market and Maude Kerns had to change the show hours to 1-5. Even though Market is closing at 4 this year, I'll not even be home at 5:00. So that's that. I'll be there virtually. It's just one year. Hopefully by next year everything will change again. Nobody knows. It will just be one more little loss for me and I've grown used to accepting loss without huge distress, because what other choice is there? Getting freaked out is hard on the body and brain and I'm tired of it. 

I want to be at least content. I want to feel like I am moving through things even if I get stuck sometimes. Mistakes aren't unusual for anyone and I can't care too much about mine, except to try not to hurt people if I can help it. Nothing is finished until way after it is over and I finally admit it. 

Sometimes I like being slow to adapt. I get to be in a weird but liminal space of unreality while I catch up with what other people think is reality. Sometimes I end up agreeing with them and sometimes I don't. Learning how to not be too obsessive but to love my eccentricity is getting easier. 

Be safe! Being vaccinated is good but it's not everything. I'll still be wearing masks and you can too. Let's all die of other things, later, gently in our sleep when we are ready, decades from now. Or keep pretending that will be the case, anyway.

An Early Christmas at Home

 I'm so relieved to be finished with retailing. Every Friday I would fight down my distress about going to Holiday Market, reminding myself how well people were wearing masks and respecting distance, and what a supportive community we live in. The shorter days of the HM were the best. It compressed the selling day into a more dense experience, so all we had to do was stay in the booth and sell things, with a little tidying up now and then. The weather was hard to believe. Over the five weeks, not one was rainy. Twice rain moved off until later in the day, and yesterday the rain did roll in at 4:00 so I got wet on the way home, but almost all of us were finished packing or could quickly wrap it up by the time the wind started gusting. No booths to blow over.

I moved to the front row spot so I could more easily use the pop-up but didn't bring it once...with the weights and all, I have to leave products home to accommodate the weight, so I gambled on the forecasts and that worked out for me. The masks were a huge hit. I felt good that they were different from what the other mask-sellers were offering, as I know I cut into their sales, but mine were late to the scene so I couldn't feel too guilty. Also no one else was offering dyed jersey with head straps, except tie-dye, and once people tried the head straps, they mostly liked them a lot better. The nose strips are also really sturdy on mine, which keeps them in place nicely. The only thing I don't like about them is that they do collect moisture so I had to change mine about every hour on the colder days, but I had plenty, so no problem for me.

I did notice the main drawback of the shorter day...what we lost were the slower hours at the end when we did all of our own shopping and our visiting. I ran off a few times but hardly had time for the farmers or anyone else, just essential errands and those quickly done. I was also exhausted the whole time and unable to properly respond to the many kind friends who brought me cookies and greetings and wanted to visit...it just wasn't possible. But of course that is always true at HM indoors too...it is rare to have the time for a satisfying visit. I'm considering sending some letters and cards once I catch up on reading and housework.

I'll have to go out briefly to pick up library books and deliver merch but aside from that, I plan to stay home hard. My stress level from putting myself at risk was constant, and even though it was low risk, and I had other motivations besides just selling my still vast inventory of crafts, it was still risk I would rather not take. I found myself assuming at times that I would get sick, and making contingency plans. I want to stay in the zone of having those plans in place but not using them. I do not want this disease. 

Though I am only 70 and have a great immune system, there's just too much still to do to even spend weeks feeling ill. I would rather stay home and gain 20 pounds. Which is possible...I really stocked up on tasty foods in the last few weeks. I have stacks of books. I want to organize and archive 2020 while it is still fresh...I doubt I saved enough of the news stories and relevant info to make a coherent narrative for anyone who didn't know what we were going through with the Market. And of course it is not over yet and we might want to look back at our early decisions and remember some of the reasons we stayed closed for ten weeks in what now doesn't look like such a risky period. I'm so glad we could end it and not have to push ourselves any farther. And I don't really know how to deal with archiving in the era of email...almost all of our Market interactions were electronically. I did print out and save some emails, but there's no way to capture all the social media posts and those were really the essence of our progress. Bless Vanessa's heart, she created a group photo from our individual photos (not all of us of course, but not everyone got into the HM family photo either) so we didn't lose that warm tradition. Plus we had a poster! A great effort by Daniel Conan Young to keep our art level high. We didn't lose a lot if you look at what we kept. We might have lost members...we'll find out in March.

So all is well, we made it through, and Market will revive in the spring sometime and might someday reach its former size and form. It will be interesting to see how things change permanently...it looks like shorter days have found approval finally. Some people have wanted to close at four for years, and some of the arguments against that aren't as powerful. One of them of course was me saying that those slower hours were our shopping and visiting times...but as we were physically more distanced, we may have emotionally distanced a bit as well. Those tight neighbor relationships are a little harder, and many of the neighbors didn't sell this season. Some who strengthened their online offerings won't feel the need to come back to the in-person sales. Some will retire and do other things. Some aspects of the gathering got a little random.

The loud amplified music on the corners will be hard to dislodge, even when we have our stage operating again. I suppose we can ask for enforcement of the noise ordinances but it won't be easy. Some of the music was great, and I was grateful, but yesterday it was super chaotic and I could barely tolerate it. Maybe we can turn the fountain back on so we can have that muffling influence. I know the perimeters have been problematic for years, not just this season. The farmers' project will be some construction noise and disruption, with some kind of move for the farmers, unknown yet as to when and where. I'll try not to worry about it. Maybe I'll have to go back to shopping at Tuesday Market.

Our community will likely not forget about buying locally, although the coming recession will hit harder and harder and some types of crafts won't sell well. It will be about values and relationships and the lessons we all learned this year: supporting the things you want to retain and the people you care about. Recessions and job loss often swell our membership and that might test us, particularly in the transition back to more crowded spaces, if that happens. So many unknowns about the pandemics...we could be finding way more illness in our collective future. And more climate-related problems, too...weather patterns, and fires. More things to put on the worry list and try not to think much about.

I'll need to find energy and passion. I had a sweet reminder of the passion last night as I sat down finally and Craft in America was on TV. I have been enthralled with watching these artisan profiles, with all that joy of being in the studio, making discoveries and working quietly with hands and heart to create beauty out of raw materials. I have a lot of art to explore still, something that I can really only do when the retailing doesn't dominate. I have a lot of writing to do too. 

Hooray, it is the off-season! May we all thrive in our splendid isolation and return from it healthy and peaceful. May we find warmth and the ability to help others, maybe even happiness in our abundance and the ability to share it. 

Thank you immensely to all of you who supported me, appreciated me, and loved me as I worked to shore up Lotte's legacy. We are so lucky to have the Market, and so much more resilient than we knew. A whole village. A healthy village full of peace and love and light. Returning light.

A Good Monday

I'm feeling very happy right now, so I thought I had better mark it to remind myself in case it doesn't last. Real happiness is pretty hard to come by this year, as we are all painfully aware.

I did a helpful thing, and knocked myself out to complete it in time to maximize its effect, and I'm proud it worked, or promises to. I worked all day Sunday and it made me very tired, but I kept at it this morning too and accomplished my goals. It helps balance the many helpful things I have declined to do for various reasons.

For instance, all I did for the elections was one lawn sign for a local race and a lot of Facebooking and reading. I did not send my hard-earned funds to any candidates, no matter how deserving. The whole election by advertising and cash leaves me cold and I know it is the world we live in now but I don't have to play the game. Fortunately most of my causes and candidates won and I refuse to believe my little dollars would have helped where they didn't. A person can only sign on to so many good works without needless self-sacrifice.

My deprivation patterns lead me to want and need lots of savings for the three months of no income coming up when Market closes, and of course these days we do not know when or if we will open again, though we have lots of wishful thinking going. Tonight OCF decides how to navigate for 2021, which as we all know by now will most likely not include the 52nd Fair As We Know It but transformation is powerful and we can have something else. When and if the big juicy events return we sure will have a new level of appreciation for them. Meanwhile, we are working on ways to get some of it safely, which we can learn to do. Market this season worked pretty darn well once we got in the swing of it, and Holiday Market has been stunning so far. 

Saturday the rain held off, though we worried, and my sales were as high as an indoor day with all that work and three more hours, so we are lucky that we have a super-supportive customer base and an awesome group of staff and members to carry us through this throwback to outdoor selling. It isn't all that bad, and we are silly about the early closing, giddy and anticipatory. It is making all the difference.

My masks are a big hit and if I can just resist ending the season with a full inventory I will call it a success. I get obsessive about having every option for every customer instead of just selling out and ending the year with money instead of stuff, but maybe I can change. I have two weeks to prove it.

Just two more weeks of being out in the world and then the big retreat. I am going to out-hermit my most hermitty self. Eventually I will emerge online to learn how to have virtual Jell-O Shows and more new types of interactions, because I must, but for awhile I am going back into making your own bread land. I have a huge stack of books to read and my plan is to archive 2020 while it is all still fresh, since it was so different and won't be that easy to explain without a lot of documentation. It should be the good kind of grief and some fun. After all, we mostly got through it relatively intact. So far.

I'll stop now so the happiness doesn't wear off and the real come through too strong. There's still a lot of real. Mom and I had a troublesome call on Sunday and I worried a lot about it, but just have to learn the lessons so I can prepare for the way this is going to play out for her and for me. I am learning the right things to say and the better ways to feel. Aging people are a big club. There's only one way to resign and we all can hope it is a long way off. 

 We'll find out. Love you all.

Sunday at Noon

 Well, we put the ending at 5:00 markets behind us for the season, to my relief. Yesterday was super wet once the rain started though it mostly held off until mid-afternoon. Market was lightly attended but there were so many thoughtful people who came down to support us by buying what we brought. I had some lovely conversations, which is always one of the upsides of slow sales days. For me, those were pretty good sales and my efforts to better display the masks paid off. I now individually cellophane bag them so they are safe and brought some baskets and racks so I can get them to be more visible. Still need to do more. I just love the groups of young people who love my hats...they sometimes each buy one, carefull picking out their top choices, and they are not always what you might predict. Guys like flowers and birds too.

One wonderful young woman got excited and inpired by my style and the fact that I bike,and told me she wants to do it that way too. She told me all of her family was anti-progressive and bought into the "radical left" propaganda and that is still my operating theory, that people were fed some really polished propaganda in their bubbles and we were all so exhausted it wasn't possible to question all of it. I have not figured out what of what was fed to me was false...that is the problem with bubbles. Unless you venture outside you can't do enough real research to figure out what you might be intentionally confused about.

We all think we aren't confused, that we know the truth and our theories hold it. We can overlook things...we feel we must. Biden wasn't our choice, though we are happy with some aspects of what he is doing, but nothing that happened was radical. It was very mainstream. It's historically wonderful that Harris is VP, and I think diversity will take a leap again, though pessimistically I expect more backlash.

It is of course shocking how comfortable people seem to be with racism and anti-intellectualism. Again, the result of propaganda in bubbles and of the fear-mongering. I suppose that is one thing we could have been snowed about to a degree...the fascism. I could see it, and don't deny it was a tendency, but I don't think it was nearly as widespread or popular as it was made out to be. I think it has much less support than is being reported, but of course it shouldn't have any support at all. But when people aren't educated, they don't get the connections. Law and order all sounds good on the surface. The scary other has to be someone, and it isn't usually someone like you. I cannot wait until more people denounce the fallen pretend leader but it is looking like it might be a long wait. The court cases should help.

That such a high percentage of white women voted Republican does bother me. I am certain some of it is the stock market...the bias is that Repubs are better at making money. The lack of connection of the absence of any substantial efforts to control the pandemic to the coming (and partially present) economic collapse is troubling. It helped ramp up the fear. If all of your investment accounts are going to tank, that's scary to women who have no independent financial security as they age, and want their kids to go to college and have kids and houses, and believe if you have money you can forestall suffering and death. We remember that collapse happening in 2008, though people may not remember why it happened...because of the lack of oversight and downright greed of conservatives. The Repubs looted and pillaged as they left office, too. So we kind of expect that again, and we will probably get it...I would argue we are getting it with the pandemic response and thr continued grift.

All of these systemic issues tied to racism are so evident in how the plague is playing out. The sacrifice of those without resources is undeniable and the way 45 "had" it was emblematic. He got the best treatments for free...not what would happen to me or to anyone I know. The callous disregard for those of color and the poor and elderly is shocking and seems intentional. That alone would seem to be enough for anyone to reject the current administration...unless they don't see it and feel like they will be exempt. I certainly don't fault the medical workers, who would try their best for me, but it isn't always up to them when the resources have been withheld.

There is a fact about predator-prey relationships that tells prey to get up close to the predator in the hope that it will be spared by loyalty and adoration, that some other victims will be chosen. It even goes as far as enabling and joining in the predation. You can of course see that in politics to a ridiculous degreee. You wouldn't think that would play out in mainstream society where people are fairly safe from 45 in person, but I think it is a factor because of the increasingly problematic personal relationships we are experiencing with the spread of hatefulness. People want so much to be part of what the people around them are doing and thinking.

For instance, if you want peace at home and your husband is into Fox "News", you might have to curtail your own independent viewpoint, and may be doing it by habit by now. And if you are "Christian" or in that part of the mainstream (and to an atheist like me, hard to understand except from a viewpoint of fantasy security) you may subscribe to letting your husband lead, and may have found that life seems easier that way. It's challenging to be a strong woman creating your own life. Challenge isn't our favorite thing right now.

Or if your neighborhood group all says things are one way, you might believe those people you have learned to trust. My Mom tells me people in her care center don't bring up politics...they need to feel the approval of the people they (used to) eat dinner with. And then we assume...people assume all of us at SM are old hippies and trend left, but we most certainly do not. We also tend to not confront issues that aren't directly connected with our Saturday activities. It's a tenuous security but we don't want to fight.

I've entertained the thought that the administration took the opportunity of the plague to reduce the population of the weak...it's believable that they think like that about us, the others, and it isn't much of a leap from there to other conspiracy thinking. I'm comforted by the reports that there was no fraud in the election and I believe that election workers, like postal workers, took their jobs seriously and were extra diligent, but like everyone else now, my trust for media reports is lower. 

My USA-Today-owned newspaper and my Sinclair-owned TV channels don't help me feel more secure in finding the truth. I'm trying to get less of my news from them and look farther by reading magazines and books, and like many of my family and friends, trying to learn to do without Facebook to a degree. My bubble on FB isn't all that interesting anymore as I'm more easily irritated in my hermit life and I just stop reading the people who annoy me. I don't want to post things much and don't want to start up on another platform either, since they all seem flawed. Maybe in the offseason when I am encountering even fewer people IRL I might try out something new online. 

I'm reading more books, currently just finished Just Mercy and White Supremacy and Me, and am in the middle of Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit and The Known World by Edward P. Jones, and The Watchman by Louise Erdrich. The Solnit book is reminding me how it was to claim my life as a young woman, a process that is still evolving every day. The Saad book was extremely important and is still rolling through my subconscious and making me think. I am much less afraid to use the words White Supremacy and especially passionate about reading more truths about the genocide of the Native peoples. There needs to be more written about that in Oregon, I think. Maybe I can find more. The families I was researching might have said more about it than I caught in my first bout of research. They were among the first here, and some of them were Quakers. I'd love to get back into that research.

Have quite a long list of requests at the library, and a pile of old New Yorkers and Funny Times. I'm looking to reading a lot as the leaf-collection is almost finished and I don't have all that much printing work to do right now. Those archives loom...I am about to cover them with the Xmas decorations just to balance the low light conditions. I guess I have plenty to do. 

Still a full slate of meetings and minutes I am behind on. I'm not keeping up with the City Council that much. The news that the Park Blocks remodel is put off for 5-7 years is bothering me, since in 5-7 years I will be in my mid-late 70s and probably not a leader in the Market anymore, if I am still able to sell. Nothing is for certain at my age, with this plague a factor and the knowledge that other health challenges may follow. I think I'll still be willing to serve, but I hope that younger leaders will pick up the work and make decisions for the world they will inhabit. I don't necessarily think I should be in charge of things like what happens in the Park Blocks. Maybe in 5-7 years my archiving will all be organized and I can just color-code the things they might find still important as they navigate what we had to work through as it begins again for like the 5th time. I do kind of miss it as an intellectual and emotional exercise of figuring out what is important. My appreciation for our organization and for the City deepened as I learned about the process and met with the people doing it. Some of it was even fun.

Time to call my Mom and then since it isn't raining I guess I should get out and sweep up some leaves. I'm loving the quiet day with the hungry birds at the feeders and the kitty napping on the windowsill above the heater. Sundays are the best. I heard on the news it is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day. That is a trend I should get behind. Or not. No Thanksgiving to make room for. Maybe up into the attic to check the mouse traps and get the decorations down. Even though there's no Xmas, I am still going to enjoy my personal rituals. 

Hope to see you at the Holiday Market, briefly and with space. It's not the community gathering we want but it's the community gathering we have. Hope it isn't too cold and wet, but if it is, we close at 3:00. That is going to be some fun.

Resuming Hope

 It's been so tense for so long I don't even feel relieved yet. Truly I don't expect it to be much less tense for the next months, as the norm-breaking intensifies until all of them are steaming piles of wreckage. Then we try to keep working patiently to make that better world we promised ourselves and the future.

We can get back to working on climate issues. We can try to rebuild trust and work together again. There will be some relief when we aren't assaulted every day with nonsense. It's already happened that he is marginalized and ignored, and even delightfully, laughed at. Finally.

Yet we are left with knowing how deeply racist our country is. That is hard to take, but like sexism and other areas of generational progress, there was a strong resurgence of attempts at control and domination and they won't just subside. But we have grown in our resilience and it is important that we didn't give up. It's essential that we really understand what oppressed people have been telling us for so long. We are experiencing it ourselves, always an important factor in developing empathy.

We all owe a debt to the people with the patience to find joy and keep working despite how tiring and hard it is to explain, over and over, how racism works, how oppression feels. We have to be woken up over and over. People seem to have to be personally touched, deeply, by their own experience with it, and even then, the draw back into comfortable numbness is strong.

I made myself stop writing here until the election was over, for a number of reasons. I didn't want to be mined for ways to increase the vulnerability of those of us who are struggling. There is a lot to struggle with. The uncertainty of our lives and health has never been absent, but it is brought back to us every day as the pandemic grows and threatens to engulf us all. Staying home and pretending we are safe is easier than almost anything else. When we have to go out, we are shocked.

I walked through downtown for the first time in a month or two and so many storefronts are empty. Businesses you would not expect to fail are gone. It's so important to support the ones we love. I feel good about the amount of support Saturday Market is getting, and my part in it. We'll be able to keep our staff through the winter, and open next season, and we were flexible and strong enough to bend and not break. 

I feel lucky I have been able to work and have worked hard after those first months of being able to do little but read and wait. Work came my way and I put it on top, and it helped me and others. My ability to print things has made it possible for a lot of value to be added, and give a way for people to contribute when all they had was money and emotion. OCF sold a lot of shirts and was able to retain staff and make plans, even though the plans are not going to give us everything we want. I hope to be surprised that we get more than we expect.

Some things are still blocked for me...I have not been able to get into the archive project, even to find things to support this outdoor Holiday Market we are doing. We have no choice except to close, so we are going to do it, but I dread it really and am not doing my usual cheerleading. I'm old...I hate to be cold and the physical workload is getting much harder, but I have two more months left in me for sure, so one week at a time. 

I will mount up and get into it. Looks like rain this week and next, but sales are good in the rain now Some people are willing to come out and shop as they think the crowds will be smaller. Plenty of people have not been down to the Market and I would have been one of them if I didn't have so many things to sell and so much loyalty to our mutual survival. It's still stressful every week as it seems impossible that someone there isn't unwell and inevitable that someone will get Covid. But so far, so good.

The masks are selling and I got into making a nice full inventory, with pretty colors and lots of choices. Too many, I suppose, as usual. I get a bit obsessed with choices and it overwhelms some people. Others have to look at everything and find the perfect one. It's working well so far and I can relax a bit about my own stock and start working on some custom ones in the works. Going to be a busy month.

Spending a lot of money on my teeth...didn't realize a lot of savings go into that in old age. Everything is really expensive, and I'm just in the root canal stage. I'm grateful I have pretty strong teeth and no extractions yet. Glad the other parts of my body are doing fairly well. Aging is no joke.

Thanks to everyone for the support over the last year, the weirdest one ever. I've learned a lot. I enjoy learning new perspectives and finding areas to explore more and I'm feeling good about the upcoming quiet offseason when I plan to read a lot and maybe really do the archives project. 

Did a lot of house maintenance outside this fall and nothing is too broken at the moment. Always too much to do but that's the way it is. Grateful for meaningful work. 

Good job democrats. We didn't quite get the moral victory we wanted but some of it feels good enough for now. Just keep working.

Gear Up, Moms.

Full of discomfort and anxiety...getting in touch with my fragility. I feel the compulsion to work through it or I wont be able to sustain the work that is before me. Right now I can't even finish up Facebook and get to printing the big pile of shirts I set out for today.

While I work I think, sometimes obsessively, about the things I would say or do if I weren't working, writing blog posts and having conversations in my mind while my hands are too busy to do anything else. I spent Sunday immersed in catching up on OCF volunteer work, typing minutes and letters and thinking hard about the conversations we've been having.

And in the evening I watch livestreams of Portland, emotionally joining the Wall of Moms to protect my kid and the kids of all of us, who are now on the line as we were in the 70s. My PTSD is running high, and I want to be of use, but my emotions are all over the place and my impulse is to hide and be quiet.

Saturday at Market there were too many people for me. I'm not ready to resume the normal flow of commerce and community. I did okay as the day progressed to the quiet that comes at three...it slows down then and I welcome that. But I heard some drums from the west and up 8th the traffic was stopped and a protest came through. This one was "Speak Up and Dribble" (the reference to a pro basketball player being told not to speak out months ago) and featured kids and adults dribbling basketballs down the street.

The structure of these protests now is cars in front, cars behind, and people on bikes and walking keeping the perimeter safe. There were yellow t-shirts identifying the particular mini-movement of the moment. I grabbed my sign and stood on the curb and joined the chanting. I started to tear up right away. I held my sign higher and yelled louder, grateful to hide my trembling chin behind my mask.

Everyone stopped at the center of 8th and Oak and they dribbled for 8 minutes and 45 seconds while we held up our arms. I can't actually do that with my left arm but I gripped my sign and did my best. It was a very, very long time. I had moved to the corner with a small cohort of my fellows and saw others of us in the street, and I assume the Market stopped, as I left my booth completely and didn't even think about it. The immersion into the long moment was compelling.

This was really my first in-person chance to worship the 8:45 as it deserves to be observed. I wept the whole damn time. At the end we took a knee. There was an ebullience, but I was full-on triggered and after it ended I waded right into the crowd to give a donation. I didn't even think about how close to everyone I was until the person I found to donate to hugged me...one of the maybe three times I have been touched in over six months. The first intentional touch. It didn't fully scare me until later that night, but it scared me good. A hug of gratitude.

As I returned to my corner I noticed things...a man in the protectors had a sidearm. He emanated safety and peace, though. A drunk person approached me, too close, to ask about my sign, did I really believe there was white supremacy in the US? At least I had no trouble answering him. I said yes, absolutely, that the country was founded on it, and if he didn't think so, he needed to read some history. He was slow but I felt that he wanted to argue, but was a little cowed by me. I decided to go back to my booth, so stepped back, and then I noticed that on my left was one of the guys who had been biking the perimeter. He had been watching that drunk guy, and was there to be my back-up if I needed one. Again, I sensed his presence as calm, safe, deliberately watchful and protective. This touched me in a new way.

I cry now to realize how hard everyone works at these protests to stay safe. The masks, the cars, the people in black or in shirts, all are there to keep us safe to speak (and dribble.) It helped me stop crying and finish the day. Typically my triggered episodes last a few days, with an aftermath of shame and weakness, and this was no exception. But as usual I try to keep operating and thus instead of a real rest day that I needed, I spent 8 or 9 hours immersed in OCF. At least I got caught up. I had to defend myself against my bully, but she really has no power over me now. She is so clearly against the flow of history and the moment that she has no real power over anyone.

Then Monday, instead of watching the City Council public forum on the Park Blocks, I virtually went to the Diversity Work Assembly. This was after printing about 250 shirts and folding them, which took all day in the heat. I got a notepad and started jotting down my emotions in a running stream on the right as I took notes on things I might want to remember to report on to my fellow crafters. I didn't identify any boothpeople in the assembly except two Board members but I may have not known them, and there were people from booths that aren't craft booths, such as White Bird. But I felt like I was out there representing and that scared me. I didn't want to be wrong and I didn't want to be right.

One thing I have learned about identifying racism is that once I see something as racist, I don't really go back to thinking it is okay. I want justice. I have a lot of work to do that BIPOC people have learned all too well, about patience and breaking big things into smaller pieces, about bringing people along and meeting them where they are, about making the changes workable by addressing what is possible now, what the goal is, and how to take it in steps so it will stick.


Because the big thing, that we have to address in my world, is that the Booth Rep System is exclusive. Call it racist if that doesn't confuse the issue, but the word "succession", when people use it, gets a visceral reaction. Giving property to your kids is elitist. Not everyone has the privilege we old members have created for ourselves within the structure of Fair Family. It is ringing hollow for me right now and I know I have to dial it back and work through it to some practical path that will work for the thousands of people who will be shocked and appalled and fight like hell to keep what they have.

We will say we have earned it. We will defend the hippie credo and how inclusive it has always been and how hard we have worked and how much we have spent. We will identify our ownership but not how that prevents the ownership of someone else. It will take some people the rest of their lives to deal with the emotions that are coming to be processed due to the moment we are in. I'm no exception. I don't want to do the things I know I should.

When I put myself out front, just twice, I didn't say everything, though I felt I said too much. We old lady crafters have a way of making things about us, centering ourselves, and I did that, to my embarassment. I did some other subtly racist things, like wanting to please people and wanting to seem like one of the good ones. I saw myself looking toward some of the BIPOC people I know or am acquainted with, for approval or help. I forgot to write my emotions down on the right side of my paper and was soon trembling and re-traumatized and so I'm doing this today instead of using the cooler hours for work. This is work. This is compelling work. There will always be shirts to print. (Maybe...)

We will have a lot to do. I am feeling my fragility and need to be building my strength. My bully is at it again, trying to oppose progress and paint things in the worst light imaginable, and fighting her has gotten so old, so tiring. I'm grateful for the physical space and isolation to feel safe, but my fucking neighbors who are hoaxers keep invading my space, using my driveway, walking on my sidewalk, making me fear my own front yard. I need something, some counseling, some real rest, some real space, and should probably go out in nature and sit. I should probably not force myself to work.

Dear world, I knew it would get harder to survive as we near the brink, of climate disaster, of constitutional ruin, of the apocalype that some are trying to create. My eternal optimism isn't going to be enough to get me through this. My previous ability to escape isn't working any more. I just find more to be accountable for, more people to reassure, more reasons to fight and reasons to be afraid. I dont know how to feel safe, don't know how I ever did.

This weekend I admitted that what happens to the Park Blocks is peripheral to me now. Something I put countless hours into over the last two years is something I don't even care about now. I watched the City Council after the 3 1/2 hour workshop. It was another hour and a half. It was inconclusive, and no one spoke for Market. I wanted to and heard my absence, but I have nothing to say. Fix the concrete. Help the farmers or don't. Take away all the parking and add some bike lanes, whatever. I have lost my drive to make it work for me or anyone else. I don't feel involved.

After saying we could not miss a single selling day or lose a single member, we missed ten weeks and have lost dozens of members. Now people are starting to die in our circle. Now things are getting critical in a life changing way. Now I face real loss. What I have built could die too.

Now is when I find there is no reassurance, no support that will help, really. This will all take the strength of legions, all working singly from home to make something completely ephemeral, real. It has always been that way, of course, when creating the future. We have never had certainty and we never will. We were always completely at risk and at risk of losing the glamour we spun over it all.

That veil is off. The shit is real. But the Moms arrived. We have, and are, the Moms. Gear up!