Refreshing and Reframing

 It's hot. Day off, so I don't have to be productive, except I have so many things to do I still feel compelled. I didn't really get the house cooled off enough so being lazy might be the important task of the day. 

Market is different for me...I resigned as Secretary at the August Board meeting, so it has been about a month, and it's an interesting transition. Part of it is a grief process as I figure out new motivations and roles for myself after 15 years of making the Secretary role an essential one. The biggest part of that was then feeling responsible for all of what the organization did...I had the duty of care and loyalty to answer to and handled so many crises, including the near total loss of all of our systems and staff at the same time...fortunately we worked hard to recover as much of it as possible and rebuild, which was mostly successful. It was very difficult in so many ways. 

It was not a burden I could carry any longer, and as my performance at all the tasks slipped, I grew increasingly unhappy with my ability to stay on top of it all. Having the legacy project of the archives staring me in the face every day, I realized I had to prioritize getting that finished and out of my livingroom. I have to navigate my actual survival at this age. 

I'm doing well for 74 but the reality is that some things will get increasingly harder so I want to apply as much energy as I do have to the many tasks of finishing up a life. I have other archives besides Saturday Market, and all need to be organized and placed withe younger people or in places where they can reside. Of course I don't know who will want a lot of it, if anyone. So for the parts that are discernible, I need to move to get those in place. It gets overwhelming fast.

 I'm focusing mostly on what is outdoors and one thing was this wood rack that was the first thing I built when I deconstructed the back half of my house in the mid-1990s. Apparently I had no idea bout removable fasteners aka screws and this thing was full of giant nails. It had a lot of wonderful and heavy wood stored on it and listed toward my neighbor's fence as it sank into the mud. At some point I removed everything and put some concrete pads under the legs, but it was still leaning and there was a possum and raccoon sanctuary in there. I didn't really mind that, but it was ruining some of the wood and not helping with the leaning, so I decided to take off the top layers at least. 

As I worked on it I talked myself into removing the whole thing. I put up brackets in my shop to store the siding and other good boards and that turned into a lot of wood storage but my thinking is that now I can at least access it, it will stay usable, and I have an opportunity to use the wood before I have to get rid of it. I'm scheming on a potting shed type of extension and a couple of other projects so I can give the boards one more life, but I'm also trying to be realistic.

I'm not great at getting rid of things. It's getting easier, but I like to use things up and I do get attached to the possibilities of them. I have a few piles accumulating to recycle, and I will need to complete those processes before the weather really turns, but I keep putting off the actual driving to the places with the stuff. I'll get there. It's supposed to rain Wednesday so that's a motivator. So today I should get out there and keep at it. I did manage to knock the rack mostly apart on Friday before it got way too hot. There are still a lot of pesky nails and pieces of wood to deal with. The shredding tarp was too big to get into the garbage so that will take a little longer. I cut a piece of it off but I only get picked up every other week, though I am patient. Probably I need to work harder on getting over paying people to do things like take a load to the dump. I know it would be worth it. And now this rack is a thing of the past. I will dig up the photo of me so proud of building it at the beginning of my project so many years ago. I'm glad I remembered to take a photo.

As far as Market goes, I made myself skip the Board meeting despite the draw toward at least listening in...I just have to work on that gradually to disengage myself from feeling like I have to do things as a volunteer or it will all disintegrate. It won't. People are stepping up, and many other people have the knowledge and will to cover what I was doing, so it's some getting over myself and some allowing things to happen in different ways than I would do them. Attachments. 

I was seeing my influence diminish and was having mixed feelings for a long time as I released things and released myself from caring so much. Some areas are easier than others...it's like the training I have had to do to not get involved in people with cars as they use them to load and unload...it's not about me. It's not important that my opinion about it is heard. 

The whole process of letting go is what this part of my life is going to be about. Every aspect of that is hard but just takes practice. I can get good at it just like I have gotten good at holding on. I can put that caring into the archive project instead of putting as much into the living market with it's daily and weekly wrinkles. I'm questioning what my motivation will be...it has gotten really hard on Saturday mornings to just get going. It doesn't help that my anxious cat likes to wake me up at 4 so I don't get enough sleep. It doesn't help that August sales have slumped but that just helps me feel more connected to members who don't sell as well as I am accustomed to doing. As I remind myself, the successful times come and go. The persistence pays off, but only if it comes with flexibility. I don't really have a choice, anyway...it's my income and I need it as long as it is available to me. 

Yesterday I had the kind of experience that makes the big difference...my neighbor was this young man who made cookware and shared my love of so many aspects of crafting. It was his first day and he had sold other places so really could see the ways Market shines far above a lot of other selling opportunities. We love history, wood, creative solutions, having a lot of skills...it was such a pleasure to meet him and tell him a few of my stories. He said such kind things at the end of the day. I was reminded of my value that had slipped in my own estimation as I grew less committed to holding everything to my high standards. I hope I can remind myself every Saturday that you just do not know what the day will bring and you don't really want to miss it...there's going to be something. And if there isn't, you will create it.

The Beginning of August

 I stopped writing in the spring, and not because I had no thoughts...I didn't feel safe expressing myself. Looking back, not a lot has changed, but this week I resigned the position of Secretary of Saturday Market. My reasons were personal...call it burnout. 

I'd been considering it a long time...I remember back in 2017 or so saying I would serve for one more year. I never found a time without a crisis to handle. I felt needed and wanted to get more things in place before I left volunteering...and I go back to about 2009 in this position, before Beth resigned herself.

I wouldn't say this is a time with no crises, but I just find myself unable to pitch in anymore. It is not a particular issue or situation, so don't speculate about it. I have just served long enough. The longer I sat on that decision the more hypocritical I felt, so I just did it with little notice at the Board meeting. 

The relief is amazing. I immediately realized I could write here again, and express my opinions again, without feeling some breach of the duties of loyalty and obedience and care that an officer is bound by. I don't anticipate any rabble-rousing or anything. I deeply need a rest.

The amount of time freed up will be instrumental in meeting my personal goals of this next phase of my life. I am 74. I have limited time left to finish the SM archiving project, deal with my other archives, and get my end-of-life plans in place. There is a lot of property maintenance to do. I have legal things to get into place, medical things, transitions to plan for. 

I have people to treasure before they too transition out of reach. I have books to write, and so many books to read. I have many possessions to shed and projects in progress. If I get extra time, I can learn to relax better. I can simply focus on my own priorities instead of always putting Market first.

It's an immense change and I am experiencing some grief processing as well, of course. I'll just be a member, and of course still plan to support my fellow members in their work. I don't want to undermine anyone else's efforts. I just want to be out of the pivotal position I was in, even though it means not being as "in the know" as I was. I expect I will shed my need to know. 

I've enjoyed not having a vote, trying to stay in a more or less neutral position, but I was beginning to struggle with how to disagree again. I had been there before. I didn't like the dissonance and am glad to be free of it. I have always had honesty as my number one value and I need to feel free to speak honestly without feeling disloyal to anyone. I gave up trying to find someone to take my place and decided that was my own control issue and I could let that pass. People will feel more free to take on the jobs when my oversight and modeling is gone from it...they can do it the way they envision it.

I do wish the other leaders the best. I felt bad that I couldn't let them know more in advance but I don't know how well it would have worked to try to transition out. Seems cleaner and more supportive to just step away and let the important tasks rise to the top and be taken on by the many capable people within the membership. No one has to worry about my scrutiny or my high standards or my historical concepts of how things should work. 

It feels like a bit of an adventure now. Tonight is the Slug Queen Coronation which is just a ridiculous thing to participate in and it may relieve me of my seriousness for a bit. August is the perfect time to have more time to myself...I love summer and plan to enjoy it very much. 

Of course I still plan to sell every week as I still need an income and I'm not planning to retire from working...just from working for free. I may get lazier...we'll find out.

Current thoughts, last May

Wrote this last May, but apparently did not feel okay to publish it. 

 

I'm getting so few readers now that I feel much more free to speak my mind...without feeling like I will get in trouble of get someone else in trouble. Just the concept of getting in trouble shows me my normal world has changed. Normally, I don't feel like there is a higher authority that can cause trouble for me. When I was being actively bullied, they had a certain authority...I had to concern myself with whether or not things would get worse. They did come in here and take sections out to share in the hopes of getting me in trouble...but of course, it's a blog, and I'm free to say whatever I want. So it isn't really governed by any codes of conduct of organizations, or similar, as it's not being done under the auspices of said organizations. But still, that level of scrutiny was daunting and I admit it shut me down more than once. 

 I'm still observing the changes brought by authoritarian attitudes and wondering how to counter them. I did successfully articulate in one situation that the word "consequences" is needlessly parental and has negative connotations that don't promote good dialogue and understanding. I stuck to just a few points in that particular situation to keep a balance and not take the stance of a defender or proponent of any specific solution, trying to hold space for discussion and the exchange of group process. I think it helped craft a little more ease in the way forward, but I am chafing at even being in the situation caused by people's need to control what is not necessarily theirs to control. They want perfect compliance with a somewhat strange set of rules, often ambiguous in wording, but with a lot of underlying assumptions that haven't made it to the status of group agreements...the group agreement stage was skipped.

The whole atmosphere of compliance makes me cringe. I guess that's because of the proximity of the patterns I learned about in my study of codependence and control/compliance relationships. I don't think of myself as controlling, and I don't like how much I am willing to comply, but I strive for neither extreme...I just want to have my time to work and decide for myself how I will spend it. That has meant much less close relationship to others...but I don't miss those interactions that used to confuse and trigger me. When I feel the pressure I retreat to my back deck and my journal and write it all out until I feel grounded again in my own life and my own ways of seeing it in the bigger context of all of the things I do.

I'm often caught unaware by things that have needed to be dealt with that I've overlooked. The chaos of the pandemic period caused a break in the logical sequence of policy-making in response or anticipation of the need for it. Now we seem to go months or years without having the time to revise, tune up or even realize policies are inadequate to the different landscape we are in. Some of the smooth operations of having an experienced team in place have gone by the wayside and although I'm not scrambling as much as I was for the last few years, I don't have the taste for it anymore. I want things to go smoothly with everyone doing their parts, and me not being right in the middle of it.

I want to give gentle lectures about how and why we used to do things, and what the underlying attitudes and assumptions were that led us to be that way. I usually resist, because that was then...perhaps there is a real need for more control now. Orgs are bigger, and the vision has expanded without any discussion of it. I haven't been involved in a discussion of vision or mission or that kind of emotional direction in years. I can't assume everyone's on the same page...we just aren't. It's like our dancing styles...I dance like I did in the 60s and 70s, and most of the people in my world weren't alive then. They dance like the 80s or 90s or whatever people dance like now. It's so different as to be beyond recognition as dancing sometimes. 

So to avoid being sidelined as out of touch, I tend to hold back and see if someone else speaks up first...see what other assumption landscapes emerge before I try to establish mine. Mine seems too trusting, too kind, too gentle for the current atmosphere. I mean, it's desperately emergency-based out there. Everything has the capacity to be extreme, intolerant, dangerous and threatening to the peace. It seems naive to expect to find peace.

Yet I keep trying. I spend time looking for words and phrases to defuse the threats and build trust. I speak up for language and the importance of what words bring with them and how they feel when used to correct, to manipulate, to judge. I spend a lot of time journaling and seldom feel safe to make a spontaneous statement or reaction. I have to carefully consider whether it will help or make things worse. I don't suppose this is anything new...probably people should often be doing that...but I find it taking more time than usual these days.

So I need this space to explore articulation by typing words...it forces me to order my thoughts and find a way out of my dilemmas.

The wisdom of age and experience

Not my first booth, but close. 1977?

  I used to spend a lot of Sunday mornings reflecting on the lessons learned on Saturdays at Market...it seems that every week I learn something new or am reminded of something important about our community. For the most part, I have not felt connected as an experienced elder in more recent years, not quite as wise and esteemed as I expected. Rather, I feel more poignantly human and fallible. While I feel my creations are appreciated and still relevant, and I'm connected to my customers, I don't feel as much a part of an artisan community as I used to. 

 

Artisans have changed, with the internet I expect, but with the changes in the farmers' market and the rise of Whiteaker popup markets and the FSP, all sort of defining our market as kind of an artifact, kind of the establishment instead of the ground-breaking innovators we were and prided ourselves as being. Creative solutions to problems were always our strength. We were grounded in values such as authenticity, honesty, mutual respect, non-competitiveness, mutual support, and a rather conservative approach to change. We were careful about breaking something that was working so well for so many. We protected the common good.

That's still there, but the common use of employees at farmers and the idea of selling year-round, with commercial businesses alongside small owners, has set a different expectation. People can sell online and at Whiteaker without really being handmade, or in person...the boundaries are not as strict, and although we have tightened ours, we see more people trying to sell imports or manufactured items, thinking no one will notice. We still notice everyone and what they do. "We," meaning longterm members and your booth neighbors, see you when you pack up early, try to outsell your neighbor with attractive gimmicks like raffled items, think about getting your own needs met over those of the whole membership, and in general, erode the feeling of all of us "being in the basket" together. That kind of left with Beth, sadly. Her newsletter columns had an inspiring quality I dearly miss, and her ethics and sense of fairness and right action were unmatched and a real treasure for us. For the next few hires after her, we searched for "the heart of Beth" and a visionary leader. That faded away, and that's all I'll say about our community's search for great management. We are a hard community to manage, and a membership organization is a very hard entity to even understand. Even when you are a part of it.

Hard work isn't enough, although we certainly value it. There are some subtle undercurrents that are easy to miss or misunderstand, and hard to track. Certain events and changes trigger my senses of those, but I often don't know how to communicate them and I don't find a lot of welcoming of historical knowledge, more of an attitude of well, that was then. The 70s in Eugene was different from the rest of the world. It wasn't disco here, it was hippies. It was the heyday of the alternative society, the culture of DIY before the internet, building consensus and community and back-to-the-land, political awareness and protest, and trying to create a better world. Not the disconnect and escapism of disco...not generally pleasure-seeking...here that was the 80s. At Market, we always worked hard and prioritized political awareness and making a more fair economy and social world. I do not think that was just me.

I am not nostalgic for the 70s. It was painful and hard for me...1970 in particular, when I was 20. I am astonished when I look back at all that happened at once. I was a radical student in DC, getting teargassed and terrified, fighting to end the war in Vietnam. My family and personal life were crushed, though that was mostly tangential, but related. I met Black Panthers though my roommate, whose family was involved in the legal defense of the Chicago Eight. I saw through the artifice of capitalism and government. I never went back to accepting the status quo or not fighting for my rights to make better choices than what was offered to young women at the time. I wasn't really aware of disco...for me it was soul and Motown, as I grew up in Delaware with a lot of Philadelphia cultural influence. I went to the woods to heal in the mid-Seventies, and made my way out here as a traveling signpainter, inspired by Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez, and of course, Joni Mitchell. Romantic, but not accepting lies and manipulation. Looking for love, but not exactly recognizing it. I actually learned about love wandering the dark paths of Country Fair, where I realized that the love of a man was not what I either wanted or was going to find. There were so many other kinds of love, and most of them, I already had, or did find. I found safety in my community and built myself what I needed. I'm not nostalgic for that. It was hard work.

It was all of the liberation movements, mostly for me, feminism and anti-racism, and finding a way to do work that didn't require compromising my ideals. Being an artisan checked the boxes, and when I got here in 1976 and discovered Saturday Market, I found my spiritual and physical home. I thrived in the Eighties through what I learned from my membership organizations and community activism. I figured out my PTSD in the 90s as I figured out motherhood, and shifted my work to building safety and love for me and my son, but Market was always a thread that held my life together and gave me the means to learn and explore. I always recognized the treasure of it, but I remember looking around one day there and feeling like it was not working for me. My income had fallen from an average day of $350 to $200 to $30. I quit Saturdays and built a house, but I stayed a member and in HM, and when I started to lose my BHOR status and my ability to keep the same booth for the duration, Vi pointed out that if I just came to Market a little, I would have the points to keep BHOR status. Vi was wonderful at knowing each member and caring about their needs. Talk about a treasure.

So I came back. I strolled for one day (aargh,) then took 4x4s to build back my points. I got space 120 next to Raven, and through his wisdom and counseling I reconnected with my roots and the meaningful aspects of selling to the public in the center of downtown. That was 2006 or so, not sure, but since then I have come every single week that was possible. It's part of my identity.

What I wanted to write about today, though, is the nuances of how we work out our process of decision-making and consensus-building. I feel that is central to the satisfaction our members expect to experience in our marketplace. We know authenticity when we see and hear it...that is a big part of why people choose to make a living creating things. We do not respond well to manipulation, or even cheerleading...it causes mistrust. In my dealings with the City trying to help manage the redesign of the Park Blocks, I tried hard to convey that honesty was far more important than most things in the process. We could tell when we were being pushed to an outcome, and I created the Downtown Developments Task Force to keep members informed on the real process and help us create responses that would keep our needs in the forefront. The City got me...they now have said that whatever happens going forward, they want to follow our lead. They don't want to do anything to us that we don't actively support. They are used to public resistance and worse, and they want to be careful not to stir that up in us. They actually do value our organization and event, and they do try hard to support us and help us thrive. I have changed from mistrust to figuring out how to be a good partner, without compromising. I used to say we said no without saying no. Now I want to say yes, but...we lead. We know what we want.

The whole city, not just us as one user, deserves a better Park Blocks. To get there, we have to embrace some difficulty and make the concessions necessary. We will have to accept displacing ourselves for a long enough period to have some real construction happen. It can be one block at a time, but it will involve at least a season, maybe more, for each block. We need to discuss what we want...we need more space on both blocks. Our food booths need bigger spaces, and we need a stage that isn't completely dangerous in the rain. We need to let go of the fountain even though we love it. It's not safe, it's a maintenance nightmare, and we need to let go of just a few trees that aren't going to do well in the future. We need to partner with the city in a vision for the next 50 years. We can't stand in the way of it.

It's hard, super hard, and we can see how it worked for the farmers, which has mostly been positive. We won't move to 5th St, but there are plenty of ways we can use the surrounding streets and spaces to stay together and allow the change. We can hold onto what is important for us and reject concepts that won't improve us. Opening in March is one of those changes that I see as destructive to our fabric. You can see the farmers Winter Market and how it doesn't thrive...without the commercial businesses and employees and value-added products, it wouldn't exist. Farmers here don't have much to sell in the winter, and they also need to rest, like we do. Lotte had a great quote about the offseason which I will try to find today. March weather is terrible, much worse than November, and I can tell you from history how experiments in our model work out. Sunday Markets had a terrible cost, and it took years to recover. Our membership can be fragile in different ways, at the same time as it is strong.

One thing I know is that providing a sales opportunity isn't enough...it has to be a good sales opportunity. Tourism in March is not there, and with spring break and studying, students aren't enough either. Until April the public does not really turn out. Ask the farmers why so many of them don't do the winter market. Check out the Art Walks. Ask members who quit why...it is almost always because they do everything they are supposed to and don't make money. The market makes money, with the fees at the level they are now, but it rained every week this month and I saw the vast majority of reserved members come one time (as required.) New members filled in but they did it for the points, and when the reserved members come back, on the sunny days to come, the new ones will get shut out. In other times of high membership totals, we would turn away as many as 60 members a week. A lot of them give up, and the reputation of Market becomes "don't even bother, you can't get a space." We need more 8x8s for this growth, which is one reason I am recommending we ask the city to go forward with the remodel. We move ourselves to Broadway or Park Streets one block at a time and allow the redesign to create more space. It won't be easy and I personally don't want to suffer, but it will serve the common good, and the future. 

It won't be my future. I'm in the founding generation that is trending out. I'm physically not going to be there as the strong woman I have built myself to be, and I have this small window of opportunity still to share the lessons of history and all that I know about us and how we think and feel. Members won't tell you why they resign positions or fail to get charged up about volunteering, or even abstain from decisions at the Board meeting. I believe the HM survey process failed because people felt unheard and didn't bother to try giving feedback anymore. The decision to stay open until 6 was not what the majority wanted, so the majority stopped asking for it. The online survey was too late. The people most affected, those who have to travel for an hour after packing out, will just limit how often they do it. Big price increases drive out people who aren't making enough. They limit the number of weekends they sell...they cut their losses, and find other markets. Online is much easier and works pretty well. There are artisan markets everywhere now. We are not their only choice. We can't expect the loyalty of people who don't have a reason to extend it. 

Tightening up has a lot of risks. Redrawing the map and displacing people at the same time as increasing their costs to pay for things they may not support just makes them quit. We have always moved slowly and carefully because change needs to be balanced with sensitivity to its effects. People need to feel valued, not interchangeable. 

I want to be supportive and careful not to reject ideas that are well-meaning and hopeful, but I also have things I won't say, that would help prevent mistakes, because I do not think I am always right, and I am not in a risk-taking part of my life. I don't have time for a years-long process of making the mistake of selling in March or raising the fees so high people will just walk away. I can't be the only person at the table speaking the lessons that worked for us before. What I can do, is ask for due diligence. If we are going to grow, or extend our selling days, I need some data. I need the census back that showed us how many people sold on rainy days in the last two years, and how much they made. Not how much Market made, but what the average booth fee was, and the highs and lows. How many people went home with less than they came with? How many people lost their enthusiasm for participating when they didn't feel listened to or valued? What are the subtle ways we showed them that they actually weren't really as important to us as we said they were? 

I'm not a total curmudgeon, but dressing to celebrate disco on Founders' Day is so not who we are. I'm not sure how to gracefully say that, or that I won't share posts with grammatical errors that show we don't care enough to proofread. I want to value contributions of people who are genuinely giving them in the right spirit, and I do appreciate the enthusiasm of our staff. But that's my current struggle...how do I participate fully when I am not in support? If I do it in the traditional way, I do it privately. I just pull back. And then I leave, and I don't say goodbye. It wasn't my plan, and it isn't yet my plan, either. I'll keep trying. I don't expect perfection. 

But I do think the values set in the beginning should persist as the values today. Community gathering, easy entry, member and customer services (even if we lose a little money on them...) and equality as a goal. Honesty. You shouldn't have to talk people into participating...they should want to. If they don't, you're not doing it right. 

So many things still on my mind. Is this what wisdom looks like? I sure don't know.

Hell-O Again!

 I've been having lots of thoughts, just not ones that would help things by putting them in this public place, even though my readers are few when I don't post a link on Facebook. I know there are some people who just support me as a writer so will read whatever I write. When things are messy, confidential or confusing, I don't feel great about processing them in here where I have to be oblique and they aren't really understood.

Mom's anniversary of her passing came and went and I'm sad at how much acceptance I have of her absence. I expected to be more bereft and I suppose I feel guilty for not suffering more. That Catholic stuff runs deep. I would say I struggle with guilt and shame much more than any other emotions. I've taken in many super Catholic ways of making things worse for myself while I try to be saintly for others. As being a saint is impossible, it wastes a lot of my energy. I have discovered that a lot of my anxiety is simply worrying. I seem to be capable of worrying about everything whether it is really happening or not.

So my main strategy when it is not Jell-O Art Show time is just keeping to a quiet routine and exercising as much self-control as I can. I try to get outside when the weather is gentle and read a lot...I try to rest my body in between what I have to do and what I want to do. While I am accepting of aging, I do have problems with things going too fast for me to feel comfortable, whether that is traffic (I cope by hardly ever driving) or news (I do like to keep track) or the developments in my organizations which I feel somewhat responsible to monitor and attempt to guide if possible.

Letting go of trying to monitor and guide anything OCF has been quite a relief and while I still find it problematic as an organization, I have convinced myself that the pendulum will someday swing back to more elevation of personal and intellectual freedom and less control and compliance thinking. I may be completely wrong about that. I heard that the new version of DEI education and work, now called EDIB I guess, to include Belonging, has abandoned any work on cultural appropriation. I get why...it is really hard to identify cultural identity and thus the right to create identified art, but it still needs to be worked on. The impression I get is that the less work, the better. I know I tried to get help learning and discussing DEI work within my committee and was not supported by management (was supported by the old management, but that's old news) or peers in some cases. I still am committed to doing it on my own, but I don't think the Fair needs to work on belonging...that's really part of the problem. Everyone wants to have that club called Fair Family and be in it, but it creates a lot of othering and calling tens of thousands of people a family is just silly and I don't subscribe to it. 

I stopped watching the Board meetings and just read the minutes which helps my irritation level. I feel terrible for my friends who are still trying and I sincerely wish them peace and hope they can stay strong. Some things should ease up. People have shown who they are, and their values are self-limiting. Once they believe they have established full control (even typing that makes me laugh) they will turn their efforts to something else. I am still conflicted about what I do at OCF, and still allowing myself to make money, but I'm much more guarded. 

I'm troubled by Market things too, as I will probably always resist controlling behaviors and the types of thinking that don't build trust. I don't know if I agree that as we grow we need to have fewer personal solutions to our issues and more uniformity. I can see how that is more manageable, but I think it's a cultural loss. I'm getting closer to giving up my responsibilities there. I spend far too much time volunteering still...I feel needed, but also hated. I'm oversensitive to criticism and such a people pleaser, and I know I make things up, so I can advise other people to let things go and not take things personally but when it comes to me, it takes some time to lose my attachment. It's also hard to see change that I am not sure I support, when my duties of loyalty and care require my support. 

Sometimes not having a vote is hard...mostly it isn't. It's very hard to be one of the few people who has any detailed history about policies and how we've solved things in the past. I have a lot of fear about getting things wrong. I forget that most of the little things we do wrong are fixable and forgivable. I do try to identify when people are being overdramatic and making crises out of ordinary problems, but it's not a good position to take to tell people to chill and let things work themselves out. No one wants to hear that. 

Communication is a challenge as we grow and I expect that is true for all of us...we forget to tell someone, or tell the wrong person something we haven't thought through. I try to balance how much I speak up at the meetings, as I don't think my cautionary and sometimes lecturing tone is well-taken in general. I never like a tightening-up phase, but I really hated the chaotic phase that preceeded this one, so again, I am hoping for the pendulum to swing slowly back to a more relaxed acceptance and lessening of the control that people desire when things feel out of balance. We really are a strong organization and hard to break...people do get damaged when their efforts fail or they are misunderstood, or when their own damage gets exacerbated, but I like that at some point they can come back and renew themselves and their commitment and mostly be forgiven. 

That's one reason I am wary when people get rigid and think other people should be prevented from participating. I am much more comfortable working around everyone's weirdness than banning them from the organization. Eventually we figure out the keys to better relationships and if we can use our values of honesty and striving for consensus and balance, we can do fine with weird people. I've always said we don't all have to like each other, but we do have to work together. I hope we are building trust. We need to be, if we aren't. I miss how Vi used to say things like everything is happening as it should and all will be well. We need someone saying that when the drama is high. We'll get through it.

But this will be my last free Saturday until after Xmas, or that is the plan anyway. We'll see what the outdoor season brings. I know I am badly out of shape so I dread the first day...it might be rainy and I will just have to bring the least amount of weight I can and take care of myself as well as possible. I had a hard time walking at all last weekend after the Jell-O Show. I was on my feet too much for the three days it took to set it up, do it, and put it all away. I had to spend Monday doing nothing but sitting and reading. Since I just got my 2 boxes of shirts yesterday (well, some of them, with the rest due today) I will not have a lot of resting days next week or the next few weeks. It may not be easy but I feel like I can do it.

I hope so! Perhaps I will be able to write about at least some of it. Maybe it will go even better than expected and I won't worry so much. I try to remember to ask myself what is the best that can happen. It's always possible that expectations will be exceeded!

The Offseason Dilemmas

It's so pleasant to have Saturdays without Market for a stretch. I treasure the Fridays and Sundays around these Saturdays as well. After so many years without conventional weekends it's just fun to do what other people do...clean house, do yardwork, start weird projects from the never-ending list. Get three or four-day weekends every week if I want. Be a writer and a Jell-O artist. Stay out of the shop completely. 

This past Saturday the 13th was what would have been my Dad's 100th birthday. He only stuck around until 46, so he's been gone for over 50 years, but still, you only get one real dad in most cases. I've mostly made peace with that part of my past, because some of the things I like best about myself came from him. He had a lot of curiosity about making things...wanted to try them out and see what kinds of problems there were to solve. He had a workshop in the basement and I spent a lot of time just watching him and probably asking a lot of questions, or maybe being intimidated into silence. I learned how to saw, for instance, by remembering the way it sounded when I tried it as an adult. He didn't teach me how to use tools. We weren't exactly close but I did model myself after things that were "boy things" in the 1950s. I had three sisters so this was partly just to carve out a different path for myself than what was available to young women then. It was basically limited to service to others, men mostly...you could be a wife, a teacher, or a nurse. Lower status jobs were in retail and clerks, like file clerks. You could be a secretary. He didn't offer any Dad guidance as he was sexist himself and had no idea how to mentor girls. I liked science so decided to study medical technology which I might have liked okay, but I really thought I should study to be a doctor. At some point in college I veered off into a whole new path which led to Eugene, Saturday Market, and who I am today, so I'm glad I did not study to be a doctor, but I did have to do it all without much adult guidance.Consequently I did not know how to offer my wonderful son, whose 34th birthday was yesterday, much adult guidance, but like me he was good at self-education and managed pretty well to become a good person and a productive worker.

What I am is often a Secretary, because I love words and reading and writing and being precise. These Secretary positions are ones of responsibility and the title is misleading, but that's usually my role in whatever groups I am in. Even for the Jell-O Art Show, for which I am an elected Queen, I take notes at the meetings and send them out to keep us all on track with our wild ideas. It's controlling the narrative, but I like doing it and get a lot of ideas in the process. Formal meeting minutes are less fun, but everything about the Jell-O Show is informal and really fun, almost all of the time, so I'm happy to be in the Jell-O Art season once more.

We're cooking up some silliness for this year. Writing the script for the performance and making the sets is so much fun for me I am a bit blind about collaborating. Working in consensus is a continuous challenge in all parts of life...it is always easier to be controlling and make things the way you are sure is best. The deeper you are into it, and the more you have invested in your vision, the harder it is to allow other people equal participation. It has gotten easier as I have learned the strengths of my collaborators...they bring skills that complement yours and all are needed, even the ones that slow down the process and raise objections. I've had my scripts thrown down on the floor and thoroughly rejected. Naturally it stung but it was a lesson in simplification and absolutely the rewritten script was far more successful and usable. It was important to see that person as someone who could cut through politeness and say what needed to be said, and important for me not to be personally invested in my golden words. Each person has their style of giving input and sometimes it is hard or annoying or distressing but it's worth the struggle to find what a friend once called the pearl in everyone.

That has taken me about three decades of sharing my writing to learn, and really what I've learned is to suspend my reaction until I get a chance to process the initial feelings and get to the point, which is to create better writing. It's part of me to react emotionally, to feel oversensitive or humiliated or unappreciated or insulted, but when I put that into my journal instead of saying it out loud, I avoid burdening other people with my irrational or unhelpful emotions. That's part of the NVC training or RC practice that has had lasting value. People speaking their own positions clearly depends on your ability to hear them and whenever you shut down your ability to listen non-judgmentally, you shut down any forward improvement or movement for everyone. Which is not fair and is not collaborative. It's like brainstorming, which you do open-heartedly without evaluating, and improv, where you say "Yes, and..." and never No. Hardly ever. I watch a lot of "Whose Line is it Anyway" and the ease with which Wayne Brady and the other more subtle improvisors pick up and run with things, bringing themselves along but not dominating, is eternally fascinating to me. It's an important skill in a lot of areas. Watching Key and Peele is also super and I wish they had done that show longer than they did.

Group process is tough. Allowing that everyone's ideas may be as good as yours is not natural to a lot of smart people. Being controlling is always tempting, but striving for consensus in an honest way nearly always results in decisions and policies that will stand the test of time. It is tempting to manipulate the process in the set-up, to only present the desired outcomes to be considered, to shut down divergence, and to push others along until they agree with you. It's insulting and dismissive to them...and they notice. Enough of it and you will be worked around...people will disregard your desire for power. I've been involved with membership orgs and group process long enough to see many examples of mistakes in power-sharing. We need a lot of types of people to really be inclusive. I'm currently reading a book about Radical Inclusion, because I recognize that I tend to include people I am comfortable with or already agree with on a lot of things, and that is not a true consensus-seeking process. I don't respect it when I witness it and when I engage in it, I don't like watching myself either. I get the tingling of warnings that something is being sacrificed for my comfort or that of other leaders.

Yesterday I dragged myself down to the Park Blocks to measure for some changes that must be made to fix the issues brought about by the additions of the stormwater catchments. We lost a lot of spaces and have to find more to replace them, or consider more radical changes like additional selling spaces, like in the streets or surrounding spaces that won't feel directly connected to the whole. We know people don't like being separated from whatever they think is the center of it all...the stage and food court for most people, but for me, the fountain and its plaza space. I've known for years now that the City wants to remove that fountain and replace it with an in-ground splash pad, which I have gotten used to imagining, with many reservations. The designs we worked with include benches for parents watching their kids play, of course, which look good on paper but impact our booths. The space I use to keep my bike and trailer safe is also going to disappear when the fountain does. I will be challenged to bring those into my 8x8, as there is not safe storage elsewhere for something that irreplaceable. I'm prepared to do that. So I'm able to not bring my self-protection up when we start discussing possibilities, and I even tried to stay off this Map Task Force, because I do not have to be there for every activity and decision the Market makes...I can't be, and need other people to pull the heavy weight as much as they will, as I am aging out and need to and want to. There were a couple too many of us yesterday and it wasn't consensus-based in the least. You can't keep people from creative visualization when they know they are good at it, so there was just a constant buzz of new ideas when really our task was to measure the spaces, not make decisions. But decisions were made. I didn't enjoy it and left as soon as I could. I just can't be involved in every decision the organization makes. I will do my agonizing in my journal and try to find a path to that duty of loyalty which requires me to support them. Whatever resentment comes up is my problem to keep to myself and make go away. It is not my organization to control...it is my organization to participate in. It won't always be on my ideal terms.

But it turns out that I am the only person left with a complete grasp of the remodel plans and how hard we worked to preserve certain elements of our autonomy and survival and fortunately, I documented everything about that four-year, now 8-year process. It started with the public market proposal and the study that the New York-based Project for Public Spaces consultants did for the city. This was brutal, and began with a thorough media campaign to trash downtown, which was in bad shape. The biggest difference between then and now is that it was all in the RG multiple times, the lead-in, the foreshadowing, the discussion, various opinions from the citizens and experts, and the conclusions and results. Now we see none of that, and that is one reason we absolutely need the Eugene Weekly to come back and help us with this more hidden phase we are entering now. I have albums of news articles that we still need and don't have. I have other albums of emails that I have printed out and will never supply the whole picture, as texts and in-person meetings are rarely documented and decisions are not always inclusive or collaborative. Efficiency has taken away some of that. Fortunately the City is rarely efficient and is required to do a lot of public statement before they move on anything. The challenge is finding out where they are doing that, keeping up with them, and being there to respond. I spent some hours reviewing City Council agendas since I stopped listening to every meeting and public forum but I am going to have to pay more attention to all of that, because the people who do, often speak in ways I would like to counter or correct with real information instead of self-interested speculation.

The money that was ready to do the Park Block remodel was about half of what was needed, and right before the pandemic had its effects, that money was pooled with the farmers' money to get their block built. The land swap, the demolishing, moving the farmers for two seasons to 5th St, and now making the pavilion work have all sucked up a ton of resources. Saturday Market was ignored and shelved, and we were kind of happy about most of that, except that the dangers of the lack of maintenance on our safety increased. We asked for concrete repair and we actually do need a bigger food court that can accommodate mobile kitchens, and we need a better stage, and so do all of the other park users. The Pavilion has terrible acoustics (those are expensive) and is not very usable by smaller groups who prefer to be outside anyway. All the gravel surfaces are hard to use. It's working pretty well for farmers' market and met some goals, but not all of the goals for the what was called Town Square and now doesn't really have a name except Downtown. It looks like the City is proceeding with implementing some of the parts of the vision that included the two southern blocks. We got the curbless streets, partially, and will get more of that this season, and likely for the next five or so years.

It is super hard to work on all of those problems at once. Everytime the FSP comes up at City Council, it is obvious there that no one on the council or staff knows a thing about Saturday Market and no one knows how to find anything out. We have gone through too many managers in the last decade to seem approachable, though they are gradually learning that we have an engaged manager now. However, I am still the person who brings the history and continuity, and because I do that as a volunteer, it is just not respected. I'm hoping that archiving the materials, which actually go back to the 2000s, will help. It helped a little during the remodel...at least they attempted to show that we had history, although it was generally incorrect, like the whole thing of the farmers being 100 years old. They became LCFM in 1979, after the Saturday Market revived them, but nobody really wants to hear me tell that story again. It's not that important right now, like the story of how 5th St. got started with hiring our manager and taking 75 of our best artisans over to make an indoor space that ultimately got gobbled up by Obieland. He has all the power now and he has tried to marginalize us the whole time, rather successfully in fact.

But now we seem to have the ear of some City staff and we may be entering a new phase of being understood and respected. The present power structure within our organization is doing well with building relationships but I would not characterize them as inclusive. I'm concerned but don't have much power to do anything about it. As an old lady from the past I am not often listened to with real openness, though as I turn out to be right I regain respect. I know our membership. I know just how annoying and self-interested we tend to be, and how that presents to bigger entities like the City. They deal with that kind of energy in everything they do, and have their work-arounds, which I have seen in their naked forms and have learned to accept as inevitable. Yes, they do public engagement, but it is scripted for their desired outcomes and it gets ugly when the people try to change the course of development. These times are the worst for that...corporate power is not honest and the battles are dire...witness NWNG, student housing, and the 5th St Market District and its connection to the Riverfront, which was supposed to be the 8th Avenue Willamette to Willamette Great Street program. Won't ever be now. It's all about what 5th St. wants.

And since Obie hates us, there's no way we will find a relocation solution that will work for us when the big parts of the remodel happen. We saw our season flounder with the 8th St and Oak and Park Street construction all summer. It was harsh and took so much staff time, policies that had to be tossed together and a loss of cohesion in our membership as self-interest prevailed. We know that our honor system of payment is often not enough to motivate fair payments when people feel their situation is not fair. So we know we didn't get honest fees from everyone. Some of us made big donations. My personal merch program donated over $2000 to the general expenses and I am not the only person who gave or bought equipment or gave excessive volunteer time. That's what we do when we're needed. But for people to give, they need to really feel a part of all of it. The reasons why they may not feel included are many and complex, but we need to figure out how to motivate people. Inclusion, where they get to speak for themselves, is essential.

I've always fought against fines and punitive policies because they drive people further away. As an org we seem to be going closer to that territory, as OCF has as well. I quit volunteering for OCF as I knew my voice would never be heard in the present atmosphere, and that is a relief for me to stop flailing. Now I will choose to comply or quit. I never want to be in that position with Saturday Market, and don't plan to be. It is my retirement plan, my sustenance, and my key to the future survival of my little world. I owe it to my history and my survival to keep trying, to learn how to increase our inclusivity and fight against our tendency to tighten things up when it gets hard. We used to be able to craft a lot of individual solutions for our very individual concerns, but we may not be able to continue to do that in a world that is less honorable and more life-threatening. Fighting the tightening up is hard to envision and hard to do. No one wants to hear about fears and will dismiss what presents as fear. That is always the first defense used against little old ladies. It's my job now to reframe concerns as logical and visionary rather than trying to protect what we have known. After so many years of that with the city, I am not sure how much I can continue to learn better ways to do that. I'm annoyed that I have to. 

But that's today. It's my day off. Maybe tomorrow I will get back into problem-solving. Really what I should do today is make some Jell-O. It always works. Also there are sticks to pick up. I'm super tempted to take my saw around the corner and help the neighbor who has a tree blocking the sidewalk. It's a street tree, so the city is responsible, and I am not, but it needs to be dealt with. Probably not by a little old lady from around the corner. I want to do it though. 

Irony is Not Dead

 Not amusing to hear the narcissist speak about supporting orgs started in the 70s which struggle with things like embezzlement. 

Give back the money.